A Glorious Dress for Clara: Eyelet and Angie

My big handwork project this fall was a Christmas gift for Clara--this six-gore jersey dress from Alabama Studio Style. I used the Angie's Fall stencil, and worked it up in the "Eyelet and Angie" variation. I'll tell you about that.

First, here's the neckline. Tiny pale green beads threaded onto feather stitches.

Back to the good stuff. The stencil is put on with white fabric paint that I cut with just a dot of green. Then I used very pale green jersey to make applique shapes for the larger flower petals.

The echinacea petals, above right, are done in reverse applique. As in, the whole dress is lined in green, then the petals are stitched around, and the interior top layer is cut out. The different kinds of embellishment give this piece a wonderful dimensionality. 

Any shape that wasn't appliqued or reverse appliqued, was simply stitched around in back stitch. I used three stands of DMC floss in a matching pale green. The knots are on the inside of the skirt.

When I had worked all my shapes, I went back and put seed beads on parts of the passionflowers, then embroidered stars ("eyelets" in Alabama Chanin vocab) that totally reminded me of piped frosting stars.

The design goes all the way around the dress, and up to the waist.