Friends are a blessing

 

I am so blessed to have wonderful friends in my life. Sarah is a stitching buddy that I hang with on Avery Island every year. The gown above was one of two projects at La Broderie Bayou 2010. This linen gown was taught by Gloria Rivera. Sarah got her gown finished lickety split in spite of the miles and miles of hemstitching. I admit with all that was going on around here since mid June, mine was put away without any guilt what so ever. My brain wasn't into it this summer. I can't imagine why.

Imagine my surprise and glee when Sarah asked if I had anyone around here who might be available to "borrow" her finished gem. Sarah doesn't have any little ones in her life right now. I jumped at the chance to give her exquisite gown a foster home. As always click on the pictures for a close up. The above picture makes the neck look wonky. It does meet, not sure why it looks funny in the picture.

 

This is a close up of the drawn thread work and embroidery on the frint skirts. Sarah does gorgeous work. 

 This is one of the hemstitched tucks on either side of the dress front.

This precious gown also features sweet little petal sleeves. My daughter loves the little sleeves which really surprised me. I didn't think she would like that. You never know.

The details of the gown are wonderful. Here is the delightful hemstitching and gorgeous feather stitching on either side of the front placket.

 

The back features a deep tuck that is outlined with with hemstitching and more feather stitching.

Here is the back tuck up close. All of the embroidery is done with DMC Color Variations floss. A sweet mix of colors.

And best of all,

the gown modeled by our very own center of attention. It fits her wonderfully and will for a while.

Our Mommy loves the gown. Baby is wearing it over a blue Swiss flannel slip. It really makes the pink embroidery and drawn thread work pop.

Thank you Sarah for thinking of us when looking for a foster home for this beautiful gown.

Great Louisiana Thread Pull

I am home again from Avery Island and LaBroderie Bayou 2010. Or affectionately known as The Great Louisiana Thread Pull. Had a good time. It is always wonderful to see stitching friends, have your meals brought to you and then someone else does the dishes. What is there not to love?

This year the additional teacher besides Wendy Schoen was Gloria Rivera from Puerto Rico. Gloria is also known for pulled and drawn thread work. The above picture is not lace insertion, it is drawn thread with net darning. Amazing isn't it?

This little daygown was the project for Gloria's class. Of course it is linen.

Gloria's gown has lots of little details that are so sweet. Tiny bit of embroidery inside the tucks,

featherstitching on either side of the lacey hemstitched hem.

Some other examples of Gloria's work. This is the dress bodice with the work that resembles inserted lace.

Drawn work worked on batiste. It truly does look like lace.

Another dress front. Some of these are a friend's photos. I left the charger to my camera at home. Of course the murphy's law of it would be, the battery was almost drained before I got there. So thanks Sarah for sending me some of your photos.

This photo was from my phone, so its quality is less. Wendy's project was a vintage inspired little dress with faggoted trim on the bodice. It is made from imported dotted Swiss.

A close up of the sample dress. Mine won't have the lace. It shouldn't take me long to finish it up. Not at all sure about the drawn thread work gown. It will be a bit more time consuming.

So I am back home trying to catch up on life as we await the arrival of a very important little person.

Linen daygown part 2 of 100

Well I have been working on putting holes in perfectly good fabric as my husband calls drawn thread work. Which if you think about it is true, but I don't like to think of it that way.

You can see in the diamond on the right I am in the process of stitching the buttonhole border. (My needle is just parked there.) Then I will do the net darning on these two squares. Boo-boo'd around one of the diamonds pulling too far but I was able to reweave that tiny bit. Whew.

I have been working on "pairs" of diamonds so that if I do mess one up, I only have to adjust one other diamond instead of all of them. The next two I will work on are the two diamonds that will be opposite each other on the front. It is actually going faster than I expected. I will try to get a picture of just the threads drawn out, before I bundle the grid. The order of work on each diamond is, you mark it with the threads as seen in this post. Then you withdraw the threads to make your holes. Stay stitch around the diamond to help stabilize it. Next you bundle the remaining threads to make a grid. Buttonhole stitch around the edges, and last do the net darning. On all eight diamonds. It is not until all of that is done that you do the embroidery then construct the gown.