Blessing Gown with Brazilian Embroidery

I often look at my stats to see what kind of Google searches are getting people to my blog. I can’t help but notice that I get a lot of hits by people looking for Brazilian Embroidery. I thought I’d show you another blessing gown I made where I did some more of this technique. I’ve included some links to the stitches if you’d like to try out this three-dimensional embroidery technique for yourself.

In 2004, I had another opportunity to make a blessing gown. This gown was for Miss Sunshine. I was excited to make another dress and I used the same Vogue Pattern as I had used on the wedding dress blessing gown.

I wanted to use a very loose weave cotton for the fabric. I finally found some on eBay and took a chance that it’d be the right fabric. I was very happy with it.

I apologize for the crappy full-length shot. It was in my pre-blogging days and this was the best one of the lot.

I adjusted the pattern by not doing as much smocking and putting in some horizontal pleats above the smocking. I used the space above the pleats for some Brazilian embroidery.

Here’s the details of the center motif.

The French knots are pretty standard embroidery technique. Click on the links, if you want instructions on how to do the Stem Stitch, Bullion Stitch, Leaf Stitch or Couching.

I used Rayon floss for the embroidery. I like the sheen of Rayon floss. The embroidery floss below are all very similar in shade, but notice how the sheen increases from left to right? Brazilian embroidery uses floss (what is the plural of floss? Floss, Flosses, Flossi?) with a variety of sheens, textures and weights. Since it’s a three-dimensional technique, the more variety you have in your floss, the more interesting the end results.

I did a similar motif on the collar.

I hand-stitched all the lace on this dress. It was easier than trying to figure out how to do it with a machine, plus I dislike seeing machine stitching on lace.

I also ordered the lace off of eBay. I still have quite a bit of it left. I like the repeat of the bullion stitch in the lace and echo of the motif in both the lace and the embroidery. It’s almost like I planned it that way!

I had enough leftover material from the wedding dress to use for the sleeves of Miss Sunshine’s dress. The major bonus to this move was that I saved me the step of hemming the sleeve. I hate hemming. I’d smock any day before I’d hem. It’s not like hemming is even hard, it just annoys me for some reason.

I have no reason to be smocking anything these days. The two blessing gowns are, in fact, the only things I’ve ever smocked. However, I truly love this art. I love the repetition and how it looks on the dress. It’s a timeless design and if I ever have granddaughters, you can bet they’ll get something smocked from their favorite Grand-Maja. I’ll be keeping my eye open for a pleater in the meantime.

I also used some leftover material from the wedding dress for the bonnet.

I was so happy to make this dress for Miss Sunshine.

One thing to note on this pattern. I used the newborn size (smallest size on the pattern) for every dress I made. I’m not sure what mammoth baby Vogue considers a “newborn,” but I’m fairly certain I would not want to give birth to the child they used for pattern sizing!

Here’s Miss Sunshine in the dress at four months! Notice she is NOT newborn and how well the dress and bonnet fit.

I love that girl, but my time with her has been limited to just a few visits. She’s sassy and sweet and girly and, urgh, I wish I could spend more time with her.

Here she is as a cute 7-year old.

Suesan