A closeup of part of the embroidery on the skirt.
The original costume had a base pattern which was chain-stitched by a machine guided by hand, in a loosely symmetrical motif of flowing vines. The vines and leaves were then accented by hand with crudely stitched yellow and white flowers.
My costume's base pattern was all chain-stitched by hand. To give you an idea of how much work this was, each one of those leaves initially took nearly 60 minutes to complete. (I got a lot faster at it as I progressed, and about halfway through I finally made myself a special tool which nearly doubled my speed.) It was relaxing work, though, and I enjoyed stitching while watching movies.
When I first started, on the embroidery at the top of the vest, I had very little sense of how the vines were shaped. As a result, the pattern is smaller, more hesitant, and far less authentic than the pattern on the skirt. To my chagrin, the pattern on the skirt is also inaccurate, because I was already stitching while I puzzled out bits of the pattern from photos.
The main commentary on the making of this costume is here:
(That's also where you can leave a comment if you'd like to.)
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
