FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Dweia
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
My inspiration was goddess Dweia, from the book The Redemption of Althalus by David and Leigh Eddings. What she wears is mentioned once in the book and I based my design loosely on that. The word archaic lead me to look at clothing from the ancient Greece and Rome. I wanted to do a peplos, but figured it was too simple on it's own.
I decided to add embroidery to the edges. Aside from some cross-stitching I hadn't done any before. My original design included cat paw-prints, as Dweia spends most of her time as a black cat in the book. It would have brought the characters playful nature more present in the design, but I started late and realized that I could not make that in time. I had to settle on a more generic pattern on the embroidery, but in an embroidery style where the pattern is mirrored on the other side of the fabric.
That of course led me to be further from the character and I had to figure out something else to bring it back. I originally had planned the underskirt to be a gathered piece of black fabric, but ended up chancing it up to yellow, the color of optimism and creativity, things that Dweia inspires in others.
All in all my design changed every time I ran into a problem with it.
Outline the construction…
Materials used: Cotton lawn(white and black), cotton tape, sewing thread, embroidery thread, embroidery hoop(frame would have been better), turmeric powder, needle to embroider and stitch, wool thread and a rigid heddle.
For the peplos, I first figured out what was suitable length of fabric so that there wasn't too much or or too little of it, to wrap around me. After that I embroidered the pattern all around the fabric by following the threads of the fabric to make it as even as I could, leaving enough room to finish the edges. I folded the edges twice and hand stitched the edge right next to the embroidery, making it as invisible as I could.
I dyed the white cotton with turmeric. The recipe I found online(Finnish magazine) required only boiling water and turmeric, so it was a good one for a first timer like me. After that I finished the edges of the fabric. I measured the box pleats and hand stitched the pleats to the cotton tape, leaving a bit of fabric as a frill for fun. Added a couple of hooks and eyes as closures at the waist. It's a wrap skirt with little overlap to keep me modest.
The belt was made of white and yellow wool tread, using rigid heddle that I made out of cardboard. The pattern I figured out by using the generator at Withmyhandsdream-blog.
Hand embroidered following the threads! Wow! I am doing a similar technique and that is time consuming detailed work. Bravo! Hand dyeing and homemade rigid heddle weaving… I think this is wonderful work. And turmeric does give a lovely color.
the embroidery is beautiful and the colors work really well together !
This embroidery is stunning and so neat! Love the colors♡
Loved the book, and love the look. Well put together, the embroidery is amazing.
The outfit is wonderful and the embroidery is amazing!
Simple, yet stunning! Your work looks meticulous. Very, very nice.
Beautiful job– this is very striking!
Gorgeous outfit, I had no idea turmeric would dye so brightly!