Baroness Chiara of Westermark asked me to do a small amount of embroidery on then Princess Quentyn’s stepping down dress, which she wore at Mists Spring Investiture 2005. I was given the finished dress, which is a sleeveless front-laced bodice with a skirt attached in dark midnight blue linen, a rough pattern for the embroidery, white DMC cotton to do it in, and a sketch for where the embroidery would go. Although the pictures below make the dress look black, it is really a deep midnight blue. The pattern was a continuous line of right and alternating S’s that ran around the neck, down the sides of the bodice, and all the way to the bottom of the dress. Although I did not measure it, I would estimate I completed about 10 feet of embroidered line.

Before embroidering, I had to freehand draw all the S’s onto the dress with a white dress-maker’s pencil, which always managed to wear off before I got to each S. This being a royal garment, I am amazed I got over my nerves as much as I did to make near-perfectly shaped and sized S’s that matched on both sides of the dress. Woo hoo! I did all the embroidery in stem stitch with either 4 or 6 (can’t remember) strands of the DMC in a tapestry needle. What was neat about embroidering on this dress was that although the garment came finished with apparently no place to hide the back of my work, I was able to work my needle under the hems and hide almost all of the backs.

The only regret I had with the dress was that I had neither the permission (didn’t ask, but . .) nor the time to add any other embellishments. While I like the simplicity of the finished product, I also think it would have been nice to do something more, perhaps in another color, or with some beading. Ah, well – another project for the future, I guess!

All pictures were taken by Quentyn and used with her permission. Below is also one picture from the aforementioned Investiture, which is the clearest one I can find of her wearing the dress.

The first four pictures on this page were taken by Quentyn Siobhan O Riordain (Michelle Chapman-Thurber), who gave me permission to reuse it on my website on 5/8/06.

The last picture on this page was taken by Cassandra Rossignol, who gave me permission to reuse it on my website on 7/11/06.