Miss Vickie: Easter

The lessons in this project were about embroidery stabilizer and trying to find some balance in my work. My inspiration was spawned from a recent article in Sew Beautiful Magazine and what I learned at the Martha Pullen Extravaganza. I was stoked about the new techniques I learned and was determined to apply them on my own.

Before I even attended the Extravaganza, I had purchased some light yellow cotton batiste for my daughter’s Easter dress. My initial intentions were to make something simple. HA! With my new found knowledge, I felt like I had to push my work to another level.

Next I had to source the laces I needed. Fortunately for me, Connie Palmer told me about a local place that has everything I need. Tomorrow’s Treasures in Crofton, MD is my new favorite place to buy fabric and laces. They had an entire section of heirloom fabrics and lace. They also have regular classes for heirloom sewing. This is going to change it all for me. I’m sure that I’m not alone in this, but as a seamstress, I need to touch the fabric I’m going to buy. Until I found out about this place, my only source was online so this was a total blessing!

The article I mentioned was about an embroidery CD that had repeatable patterns that looked like French lace shaping with pretty little flowered motifs. Although, I hadn’t purchased the CD, I liked the concept and chose to mimic it using French cotton lace and design. Enter the stabilizer issues……. My idea was to embroider the flower bouquet onto English netting, edge it with shaped lace and create a window pane look on the skirt of the dress. This is a simple concept but time consuming to implement. Oh, and you have to be very careful with the English netting! The first stabilizer I used was a tacky, tear away with a water soluble topper. The tear away was too strong for the netting and the tacky part didn’t want to let go of the netting. Ugh! I tried my water soluble Solvy on the bottom and the top but it had too much stretch to hold things tight in the hoop. So I went to seek out help. My friend Diana at Capital Vac & Sew steered me in the right direction with some Floriani Wet & Gone. This stuff was perfect for what I wanted! The proper combination was the Floriani Wet & Gone on the bottom and the Solvy on top with a wash away adhesive. I was very happy with the results. In all, there are 11 embroideries on the dress; 8 large ones on the skirt, and a smaller size on the front bodice and each sleeve.