Modern Mexican Embriodered Dress

If you've been following me on Instagram, you'll know that this dress has been months in the works! 

It started with me discovering the bright flowers in Mexican embroidery and falling head over heels in love. If I could cover myself in pretty colourful flowers every day, I would. 

Although I love the beautiful embroidery, I'm not such a fan of the traditional peasant dress that the stitching is usually done on. I feel much more comfortable in clothing that fits my curves and accentuates all the good bits. 

And so formed this idea of doing my own embroidery on a dress. First I had to learn to embroider! I practiced satin stitch on a scrap of fabric I later turned into a pouch. 

And as it turned out, I was fairly good at it. 

I then practiced making this dress pattern for myself (I had previously used this pattern to make 3 bridesmaids dresses earlier this year, but hadn't fitted one to my own body.)

It turned out the pattern needed a LOT of adjusting for my body. 

These adjustments included::

• Taking in the back neck line so it didn't gape (I used this gaping fix tutorial and it worked a treat) This is a problem I have never had before, and may be related to this pattern.
• Lifting the waist line up by 3cm (it made all the difference)
• Sway back adjustment to avoid puckering in the small of my back.

Now that I have perfected this pattern I think I'll need to make another version at some point. If I had known that the pattern would require such restructuring I would have ditched it and chosen a new one, but once you get started on something it's hard to stop! 

Once I was happy with the pattern, I started to embroider onto my fabric that was marked out in pencil. This took weeks sitting in front of the TV each night stitching away, trying to match up my flowers and neatness on both sides. 

As I was stitching onto a large piece of fabric it was hard to tell how the embroidery would look when it was finished, in hindsight I wish I had brought it downwards a little, and also turned it into more of a V shape with the bottom of the V lining up with my sternum. However, I couldn't have known that at the time.

The dress bodice is fully lined and hand stitched closed, and includes an invisible zipper down the back.

I am super crazy happy and proud of this dress. It fits me like a glove, I love the happy colour, and I am very proud of my stitching.

And also, pockets! Who doesn't love pockets?

Thank you so much for encouraging me in my stitching and dress making, my friends will be very happy this project is finished as they've been hearing updates about it for months! And now they will get to see me in it all summer long!

DETAILS:
Blue fabric: 100% cotton

Embroidery: Hand stitched and designed by me using DMC thread

Dress Pattern: New Look 6223

READ MORE:

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Cinderella Dress

Green Knit Dress

Sewing With Kids