A Current Project

Here's a peak at one of the small projects I'm working on.  It is something I've wanted to try for a while: use stitching to make panels for an Arabian costume.  I have envisioned some fancy hand embroidery with different types of stitching - like I've seen some other costume makers do.  However, for now my only embroidery experience is of the cross-stitch variety.

So, I present an in progress Arabian costume panel on the highest count fabric I've worked with to date (22ct adia):

It has taken me many, many hours to get to this point and unfortunately it isn't big enough.  That's not really a problem, since the pattern is easy to repeat and modify.  In the beginning I just sort of eyeballed how much of this pattern I thought I'd need.

Today I started adding on more of the pattern all around, to make it fit the panel size.

Then I'll have to do another one to match this, plus the larger rear panel.

I have quite a collection of fabric gathered now for costume making.  Many of them I do plan to at least do some accent stitching on.  I also have some fabric for the fancier hand embroidery, and the library here has a couple of wonderful books on embroidery stitching.  So I hope to eventually make that fancy hand embroidered costume I dream of in the future, but for now I'm liking the looks of this one.