Yay! I get to do something for Mari. That makes me happy, as she has long been an inspiring person to me.

Mistress Mari will be the West's next queen come 12th Night 2008. She and Gemini have an army of volunteers dedicated to making their reign a spectacular black-draped rock show, so my help isn't much needed. I did, however, really want to embroider something for her, and it was just serendipity that she had a gown needing some embroidery that I could work on. Woo hoo!

Mari handed over the gown-to-be at Mists Investiture last, offering some instruction on where to place the intended trim. The gown is a lovely deep red, and she wants the trim done in gold. Preferably somthing with actual glimmer, but she'd settle for gold-colored thread. Mistress Leticia had sent her some potential patterns from a collection of borders she culled from an online source of illuminated manuscripts.

Mari had sketched out a couple she liked and sent me with suggestions on how to do them. I really liked a double trim that is incredibly typical of illumination of the time. In a good way - kinda. See, it encorporates these little tiny flower and leaf bits that don't lend themselves well to being represented via thread. I had originally thought couched twist or passing thread would look nice, but neither will sit into the tiny corners this pattern requires. And just what does? What else - the DMC gold metallic thread I use for the couching gem technique.

Oh, it looks good and all, and Mari's pleased that she'll get her glimmer. But this thread is a right royal pain to work with. It doesn't want to go where you think it should go, it shreds if you look at it wrong and it can be really rough to the touch. BUT . . it's the only thing that will work. So I'll work with it. And now I appreciate all that time I spent on the gem couching technique. At least the thread already knows all my swear words.

Here's the test piece, with the DMC gold metallic on the left and Eterna silk on the right.

Through the magic of Publisher and my being the software goddess that I like to think of myself as, I managed to create a line pattern that curves to the shape of the cuffs. I've not yet attempted the collar piece; one miracle at a time, thanks! But since the wool (I think) of the gown is thin yet dense, I'll have to do the old sew through the tracing paper trick in order to transfer the pattern. That will take time and muuuuch patience.

Alright - things are moving with this project. My super software skills aren't as miraculous as I first thought, but they did do some good, and were only tripped up by my complete and utter lack of sewing comprehension. Mari wanted the pattern to flow around the cuff, but when I placed the pattern based on the edge of the fabric, that didn't happen. After some wrangling with it pattern, I finally sent the sleeves back to her so she could set the pattern to where she wanted it.

Once I got the sleeves back, I sewed through the tracing paper, tore the pieces off, then drew onto the fabric with a gold pen one "module" at a time. I cut out the sewing thread and started embroidering with the gold DMC thread. It's going all right; now that I've done five modules, I've pretty much got it down. Things aren't 100% even, but at least the stitching is going smoothly and the fabric is taking it well. The little bitty corners on the inside of the leaves are difficult to make happen, but I've run across a way of stitching which I feel gets the point across.

Here's the first sleeve with five out of the seven modules done, front and back. I'll have at least one sleeve, possibly both, done in time for the 12th Night artisan's display.

Both sleeves are done. I like the way they're turning out! This picture shows the fabric as a more Christmas red than the bright maroon it really is, but oh well.

The worst part remains the little flower and leaf bits, as they are darned difficult to make consistent. I just hope no one looks too closely at them. However, the curls of the rest of the stitching look nice. It almost looks like I used couched twist.

I have transferred the design onto the neckline of the dress, so it's ready for the goldy goodness. I have 26 little modules to do - what fun! I think this is all going to look really good when done. Simple, yet elegant. :D

All done - first for 2008. Score! What a great way to start the year off.

Here are two pictures of the finished piece, one on the dress dummy and one a little closer up. I'll mail out the dress to Mari (excuse me, she's a Majesty now :D ) tomorrow.

I've asked around for a photographer who's going to be at Estrella, and hopefully someone will get a shot or two of Mari in the dress. If that happens, I'll post it here.

Well, the Estrella gown did not debut at Estrella. I'm not quite sure where it debuted, but I do know that Estrella was a cold, wet, muddy event that Mari refused to wear her nice stuff at. Yay Mari!

But I was still without pictures . . until today. I received some "seamstress" pictures from Mari - they are lovely, and she looks lovely in the dress. I especially like all the little touches of gold here and there - the piping, the buttons, the jewels, and of course the embroidery. It all works to subtly to enhance the simple beauty of the dress itself.

The first six pictures on this page were taken by myself between 11/19/07 and 1/9/08.

The last four pictures were taken by Donna Murillo and permission was granted to use them by Mari Alexander/Mari Joy via e-mail on 3/11/08.