Easter is such a great excuse to make a cutesy dress! Naturally I had to embroider it too. It's just so fun!
Myra is such a cooperative little model. She works the camera. Anyway, the dress, right? It is Ottobre 02/2005-12, which I made for Myra years ago. It's a nice simple dress with basic lines, which makes it perfect for embellishment!
The dress itself has a peasant style bodice, with elastic gathering at neckline and sleeve openings and a basic dirndl skirt. Normally it would be a quick sew, but I complicated it in every possible way...
First, I added embroidery. For the bodice, a triple easter egg applique framing Myra's name. This fabric is a shirtweight stretch cotton woven. Really perfect for this dress, but the stretch made the embroidery challenging. I ended up stabilizing with mid-weight cutaway, and floating the fabric. For additional stability and body, I also underlined the entire dress with silk organza.
The trio of eggs on the skirt actually needed more stabilization, despite their similarity to the bodice motif. I doubled the cutaway and that did the trick, again floating the fabric to minimize stretching during embroidering.
As if the embroidery wasn't enough to add to the complexity, I also decided to fully line the dress. For the bodice, I actually ended up simply underlining the front and back pieces. My brain wasn't up to figuring out how to attach those cap sleeves and the elastic in a fully lined bodice. I did add the lining pieces after stitching out the embroidery motifs, so the back of the stitching is covered.
To give the skirt lots of pouf, I added a tulle ruffle stitched to the lining in between the skirt and lining, so it wasn't scratchy against her legs. The lining fabric is Hang Free, so it is very soft and comfortable.
Despite the challenges of embroidering this fabric, I'm really glad I went to the trouble of making it work. I feel like I'm learning so much about machine embroidery with each new project. It is so fun to have a new challenge!
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