I’ve been making a new dress for the 2024 cool faire season, and to make the project take much longer than usual, I decided to add intricate hand-embroidery to the shoulders. I’ve done minimal embroidery on small projects in the past but am so in love with texture wherever I can get it, that some six-strand floss seemed like an obvious winter project.
The long dark winter months are spent with many an evening in front of the television. But because I cannot stand to consider myself idle, nor do I want to be scrolling through my phone all winter, having a lap-project to keep my hands busy in front of the fire and the big screen makes my season of rest much more fruitful. The dress fabric itself is a heavy suit twill that thankfully didn’t need a hoop because a hoop would do no good on the curved seam anyway.
To further enhance the challenge I made the same design on both shoulders mirror one another as best I could. The design was done free-hand; no templates or transfers but I did sketch a few guidelines with chalk. The thought crossed my mind to continue the design on the front of the dress but likely I will be wearing a shawl, bodice, belts, jewelry, or other obstructive adornments over the body of the dress and too much embroidery work there would be waisted. A shawl or cloak may obstruct the shoulders, of course, but less often is my prediction.
Now that I consider the embroidery finished, I can assemble the rest of the dress. The sleeves will
