Hobbit Inspired Dress

Hobbit Inspired Dress

For the Hobbit I have designed a dress that I will be wearing to the premiere.  Almost a month ago I posted my design for the dress.  However, I ran into some problems that I had not foreseen.  I made a corset and hated it.  So I began that project again using a different shaped pattern.  I have now finished the corset (again) and will post pictures soon, this time the result was much better.

The next problem I ran into was the floral fabric that was to be the over dress.  I had completed the dress underneath and the overdress.  The only think I had left to do was to make the slits in the front and back (see the design posted on Nov 8^th).  The dress had six ‘leaves’ for a lack of a better word.  The front and back pieces were split up the front and back up to the hips.  When I tried to implement these cuts, creating the two leaves on each of the pieces, it looked terrible.  Because of the weight of the fabric the pieces did not lay as I had envisioned them.  They looked stiff and un-flattering.    So- for the moment- I have given up on the overdress.  I likely will return to it at some point, but it is going to need some thought about how I can remedy the situation.

So, moving on to what I decided to do.  I decided that I would just decorate the underdress so it looked ‘finished’.  However, this endeavor has been an adventure that I did not anticipate.  I bought gold metallic embroidery thread (yes thread, not floss).  I was surprised at the many kinds of metallic thread.  There are metallic threads for hand embroidery, metallic threads for machine embroidery, and then there is metallic floss for hand embroidery.  I chose the thread because it had the exact color and sheen that I wanted.

Keep in mind, I have never really tried any embroidery other than cross stitching as a girl (which is completely different).  I know how to back stitch and satin stitch.  Anything more complicated than those, and I am Embroidery for Dummies girl.  I attempted a satin stitch with the metallic thread.  Something about the thread did NOT like doing anything other than a back stitch.  The satin stitch kept pulling and warping the thread (I assumed it was because I was inept, but now that I am using regular embroidery floss to embroider within the gold outline, I have realized that this is not so) so my conclusion was that it is the thread that disliked doing a satin stitch.  I back stitched around the design I had drawn around the neckline of the dress.  This process took about 25 hours. 

I then worked on the upper arms.  I did a crisscross pattern on the arms using a back stitch.  I then sewed gold beads onto each ‘x’ of the crisscrosses. 

After holding up my dress I decided it still looked ‘un-finished’.  I then decided to fill in the design on the neckline with a green embroidery floss.  I am so happy with this decision.  The floss gives off a lovely sheen, but is not too noticeable.  However- there has to be a drawback, of course- it is taking me forever.  So far the green embroidery has taken me 5 hours, and I have only filled in a fourth of the design.  With only a week until the movie opens, I am beginning to get a bit nervous that I will not finish in time!

I will most more pictures of the project as I finish more.  As usual please leave comments!   I would especially be interested in hearing if you have any insights on why the embroidery thread was so difficult to work with; I am sure my inexperience was the problem, but I would still like to know why it was impossible to satin stitch with.

 :D  Thank you for visiting!