Red Roses: A Jersey Dress for Clara

A few photos before I packed this jersey dress off to Clara. I used the "Kristina's Rose" stencil available from Alabama Chanin's downloads, and stenciled the design in dark red (plain old red I mixed with a little brown). Both the front and back of the dress have a border of about ten inches of roses. 

The roses vary in size from three inches across to about eight inches. I decided to approach it as a sampler of various jersey embellishment techniques. So you can see beaded stitching below,

 and below here is the wonderful couching technique, where you stitch down strips of jersey that have been pulled into ropes. I love this one and it goes really fast--and the ropes are remarkable easy to shape precisely.

I worked in two colors of jersey--the red of the dress, and a darker red from a tee shirt from Goodwill.

I did a bunch of roses from appliqued strips, sometimes laid flat with bugle beads on top, and sometimes done in random ruffles, with gathers stitched into the strip. This one's fun too.

And last, I finished the neckline in a beaded rosebud stitch.

I can't wait to see it on Clara when she comes home for summer!