Playing With Color

This project was one of the times that I fell in love with a fabric, then struggled with what to put with it. The dress fabric was such a fun bubble print and the soft vintage colors immediately caught my eye. The fabric lay around the sewing room for several weeks while I experimented with contrasting fabrics, floss colors and patterns. Because the print was busy I wanted a simple dress, and I also wanted to experiment with pattern #124 Heirloom Dress to see how it would look in a more casual version. The gold gingham fabric was left over from a previous project and the purchased tatting was also in my stash of trims. The gingham was a very close match to the gold in the fabric and all that was left was to pick out embroidery floss to match the other colors. The embroidery design is one included in the pattern and I used the Running Stitch, and Bullion wraps for the flowers. These are quick and easy stitches and the directions are in the "Heirloom Embroidery Book."

This dress is one of my favorites and reminds me of the styles that my daughter enjoyed when she was little. I also got to enjoy seeing the dress modeled by a friends little girl at Martha Pullen's School of Art and Fashion in July. The two year old who wore the dress laughed and ran the whole length of the runway, which confirmed my impression that this was a "fun dress!"

Martha Pullen School

Once again, I had the privilege to be a teacher and assistant at Martha Pullen's School of Art and Fashion! I taught "Beginning Heirloom Embroidery", "Shadow Embroidered Bubble", and "Picture Smocking" classes the first of the week and then finished the week assisting in one of the beginning heirloom sewing classes. I love the opportunity to teach sewing to women from all over the country, meet up with friends from previous schools and make new friends who also have a passion for sewing! It is also a great way to see new fabrics and to get inspiration for the next project.

The picture for this blog is of the project that we did in the embroidery class. The embroidery was done on a tea towel using the 16 basic stitches that I teach from my book. Monograms are still popular and everyone enjoyed a design with such a variety of stitches and color possibilities. I purchase the towels at http://www.allaboutblanks.com/ and have found that they make a great gift along with a gift card for the new brides!