Sunday, December 15, 2013

Pressing Forward on my Alabama Chanin Anna's Garden Dress!

I am so excited to be making significant progress on my Alabama Chanin Anna's Garden negative reverse applique dress. Inspired by this dress:

                   Image



I started hand-stitching this four panel dress in February when I got my new airbrush and Anna's Garden stencil.

 

I enthusiastically began stitching the panels every chance I got. I took it with me to appointments, on drives, to the gym, wherever  I went; I could not stop working on it. That was the way it was for a good part of the year. I was making great progress until one day someone said something to me that made me change my perspective on this one. It was a benign observation that eluded me until they mentioned it. It was not a bad comment in itself, but it just took the wind out of my sails. 

It was not a conscious decision to stop working on this, but it fell by the wayside while I worked on many other things. It was bought back into my focus by Dr. Fun who is making a full length dress in the Anna's Garden stencil for Mardi Gras. Her dress is going to be beautiful and I cannot wait to see it completed. She lit the fire under me again to get stitching. 

Back in August I had half of the dress stitched and wrote about it here.

B.I.R.A Wearing half of the dress

Now, after renewed inspiration, I am making tremendous progress. Here is where I am today:
 
Front Completely Hand-stitched


Back still a work in progress

Stitch Details. I decided to keep some of the white paint in my version.
Getting There


Underside stitching
Though I love this, I am on the fence about keeping this dress for myself or selling it to help fund my Alabama Studio Week (if interested, email me). If I keep it, I hope to have it completed by my birthday in January. I am also hoping to have a place to wear it by then. :) 

Happy Sewing,
Bianca

4 comments:

  1. Gorgeous, and you're almost finished! You can do it by January! I know what you mean about finding a place to wear it - you can't wear AC clothes just anywhere when they're embellished to the hilt. I've only worn my corset once on vacation, but my plain red skirt has gone to 2 Christmas parties in the past 2 weeks. Now that is so neat about selling your work to raise money for that week - I'm so jealous! I don't think I could get a whole week away, but imagine all the stuff you're going to learn and get to do up there. Plus it includes yoga classes - neat!

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    1. Thanks for inspiring me to get back to this one. I hope to get to go to a Studio Week some day. I have no plans made yet, but I figure if I am going to do it, I should go all out. I love my crumb snatchers, but a weekend is not long enough ;)

      I happily wear my pieces where ever I can even if it is to a grocery store, the library or a play date!

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  2. Did you ever get a chance to go for your AC weekend?

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    1. I did not get a chance to go to a weekend. I lost interest in it. Her response to my request to change a dress color from "Nude" to one that is more culturally inclusive, soured me on it.

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