These designs are meant to be “heirloom”, stitched with fine cotton thread on light weight batiste… but I finished up all the stitch work on another blue (Kona cotton… which doesn’t have quite as nice of a drape as Moda Bella) and decided at the last minute to use Glide thread, which is super shiny.
I also went with a slightly darker blue thread than the fabric. At first when it started stitching out, I wasn’t sure… but I think I love it! This may be my favorite yet! Can’t wait to finish it!
I added extra pintucks to this hem with a row of the Venetian stitch between, it being sewn with a wing needle since this design has wing needle embroidery in it.
The meant cutting off more from the top of the skirt… so the drape may be ruined… oh the suspense! I may very well have ruined it, but I just couldn’t stop myself!
I did go ahead and join these designs in my software (Embrilliance) so there were only three hoopings instead of six, but I have hesitated to do that with the ones that have wing needle stitching in them as it’s very dense, and my Bernina mega hoop must be at least fifteen years old and is pretty much worn out, it no longer hoops the fabric very well.
I did cut some strips of blue painters tape to put on the inner hoop to try and snug it up a bit, but it really didn’t help much.
As you can see, almost immediately I had some puckering around the wing stitching, but it wasn’t too bad in the end.
I’ve been doing so much sewing all three of my girls are uncovered and have been hard at work in my little sweatshop 🙂
Now to gather the skirt and see if I ruined it! I sure hope not, I really like this one.

Beautiful, I like the thread used.
Thank you Sue, I think I do too. It’s shinier in person, when I finish the dress we’ll see how it photographs outside.
I like the bit of shine on the grey to give it brilliance and depth! Lovely!
Thank you Shari!