Starting the embroidery

Today I have started to embroider the skirt of Elsa's coronation gown. To be honest I think that painting the motifs on is probably more screen accurate, but I want to bring this costume closer to the traditional Norwegian bunad, which is so clearly the inspiration of the fashion in Frozen. One of the real distinguishing things with the bunad is the heavy embroideries, embroidery it is for me.

Bunad from Ringerike, Norway (bunads-magasinet)

Elsa's skirt isn't as heavily embroidered,but the decorations go all around the skirt,and ends just below the knee. Now I can't take credit for creating the template for the motifs, I mostly used the ones created by Andrea Schewe. I felt that they were a bit too squashed and not as sleek as the original though. What I did was to print out two copies, one on an A4 paper and one on an A3. From those two prints I took a couple of measure points and then more or less freehanded my version of the tall motif. I haven't done the rounded lower motifyet.

The two print outs, and my own version to the right.

In order to transfer the motif to the fabric I cut out all the parts of the motifs and placed them on the wrong side of the fabric. One very good thing with flatlining the outer fabric to a natural cotton is that it's easy to draw on it. I placed all the pieces of the motifon the skirt and then traced them with pencil.

The cut out motif pieces in position

The motif is drawn on the wrong side

I then marked the outer lines of the motifs with the same thread I'm going to use for the embroidery, doing simple up an down stitches.

Tracing the lines of the motif

Then when I turn to the right side of the fabric I now have a visible line that's easy to follow. I'm using DMC 3808 for the darker parts, I haven't decided on exactly which colours to use for the rest of the embroidery yet.

Now I only need to start filling in the motifs, and then there are seven more tall motifs, and all the lower ones left.