A Serbian Outfit

This outfit was an exercise is using old cloth. The materials used were antique silk, and I didn't have much of it.

The challenges of the dress portion was how to make a skirt long enough to go past the knees. This was a bit tricky as the pattern I chose, Bleuette's Serbian ensemble, has a rather high waist. The cloth also had a fair amount of holes, so in cutting around the damaged portions, I might have had enough for a shirt. Instead, I opted to embroider flowers over the holes.

This made the skirt issue a bit simple. I would piece in a panel of the silk into the skirt and embroider that portion to mimic insertion trim. The sashiko design I chose resembled flowers as to tie in better with the embroidery elsewhere.

The over bodice was a minor headache. The kasuri used is gorgeous, and I wanted to show off the pattern to its best advantage. However, the bodice is less regular than the rectangles of the dress, and to get the best parts of the design, I would end up creating scrap to small to be used for anything but stuffing. I did what I could to minimize the waste, but it still bothered me. Other than that, the top was straight forward, though hemming the curved bottom was mildly annoying.

When I first put this on Frederica, I found out that I cut the shoulder portions of the top a bit too long, so it hung down lower than I liked. I quickly fixed it by moving the hooks lower down the back.