Wednesday, August 28, 2013

A little fantasy

With Pennsic and Pennsic sewing over, I really wasn't in the mood to work on anything.  Actually, a week ago I moved everything that had been piled around the house back up to my sewing room, which looks like a bomb was dropped into the middle of it.

But then I woke up Sunday and wanted to make something completely non-historical.  We're going to the Sterling Renaissance Faire in a few weeks and I was excited to just...play.  Make something that hasn't been researched to death.  Embroider something without trying to scour pictures for historical justification.

Actually, I wanted to be an elf.

We were having a lazy Sunday though and didn't want to drive to the nearest Joanns, which is almost an hour away.  So I made do with Walmart.

I found this pattern (Simplicity 1773): focus on Dresses C and D (or the red and cream one)

Some plain white muslin

And some cotton with a slight pattern to it:
which I tossed into the washer with two bottles of dark green Rit dye.  Perfect shade of forest green.

Sunday I started the embroidery on the under dress.  I used Urban Thread's Elven Court designs:

The sleeves are a simple leaf cascade:

And the hem was two bands of leaf border and a leave cascade centered in the middle.  It turned out so well, it almost looked like I knew what I was doing.

The fabric got a little puckery under the embroidery because it's just muslin and that's some pretty heavy stitching, but I keep telling myself that this is a no-stress dress.  NOT a big deal.

Next:  sew underdress together and start embroidery on the overgown.