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.)
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