lace on irish dance dresses- part 2

For the next custom dress, I am working with a highly embroidered and sequined organza lace. The fabric itself is just gorgeous and has great potential. It can be used as it is for the cape or perhaps a few panels, or the border and the hearts can be cut out and used to be pieced together in a different pattern.



The dress I am making with this fabric has a green velvet as the base fabric in the same shade that is the green in the lace. Combined with a gold/beige thread for the embroidery, it will look like a perfect match.
Since the border is so wide and lovely, it is used as-is for the border on the sleeves. The border is cut from the fabric, backed and hand-sewn in place on the sleeve.

The skirt will be decorated with small 'panels' also made from the organza lace. The hearts were cut out in different ways to break up the pattern and add some interest to the shape. In the picture you can see the separate elements cut from the fabric, and how they look together. They were basted on top of eachother with a few hand stitches in beige thread. Nearly impossible to see already. The green lines of the edges will be re-embroidered and around the outline the matching green satin stitch will fill in the gap that exists at the sides of the heart-shape.



These appliques will be backed with some stiffener and a gold satin fabric and then embroidered/sewn onto the circular skirt piece.



Here is a picture of the panels ready to be stitched onto the dress:



to be continued...