FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Wild Card Prize - working within the limits of chronic illness to produce beautiful embroidery.
Alice’s Apron
(click images to to enlarge)
Other Credits
Model: Sarah Jones
Outline the story …
I've always loved Alice in Wonderland, being very much a daydreamer myself as a kid. The call to go 'down the rabbit hole' of course made my mind stick on Alice. My mom had her own "Through the Looking Glass" book from the 60s, which she got as a child, and looking through that made me want to make the costume. I combined that with my recent interest in historical costuming and started looking up what people were wearing at the time Alice was written, and when the story was set. It's mentioned in "Through the Looking Glass" that both stories take place in 1871, a year after the second book was published and 6 years after the first. My skills and time are pretty limited; I'd never sewn a garment before and most of my needlework skill was in embroidery, so I decided on the apron as that seemed to be the easiest part of the outfit. I looked up embroidery patterns from 1865-1870 and designed the embroidery using those as inspiration and style guidance, as well as paintings from the time of rabbits and flowers. I wanted to draw inspiration from the era the book was written in as well as the original illustrations to guide the style of the apron. I ended up making my own pattern because I couldn't find one quite like the style I wanted.
Outline the construction…
I used about 3 yards of white cotton muslin, found some lace for the top of the bib, and chiffon ruffles for the skirt and shoulder-straps. The chiffon was unfortunately the only kind of pre-made ruffles I could find that would arrive in time, and I didn't have the time myself to make them from scratch. I sewed the pieces together with my old Kenmore sewing machine, but the embroidery was done entirely by hand with satin stitch and chain stitch with DMC white cotton six-strand embroidery thread. I used a lot of primary resources from archive.org, like Harper's Magazine and fashion plates I could find for around the time. I ran into a few issues; I hadn't taken into account the shoulder strap width when I measured for the bib section, so it's a bit wide for my model. I had smaller issues, mostly mistakes on what order to sew things together. I had a lot of trouble figuring out the waistband, and some of my stitches strayed off too. My biggest challenge was my health; I'm chronically ill and have chronic pain. I can only work in small bouts on good days. My health started declining again in mid-December and I haven't recovered yet, and it really frustrated me to not be able to work as much as I wanted. My health was the reason why I was nervous about entering the competition, so being able to overcome that enough to meet the deadline was thrilling.
That hand embroidery is absolutely fantastic. I’m so glad you were able to finish this beautiful apron!
Thank you so much! It was a lot of work but I’m definitely glad I was able to finish it too.
Love the ruffles! And the that embroidery, just wonderful!
The embroidery brought such a smile to my face! This is such a cute piece that I would love to wear myself!
The embroidery is truly striking!
This is a Beautiful apron. The hand embroidery is 💋 chefs kiss
It is wonderful, well done!!
This is so cute ! Love it!
beautiful apron! the embroidery is incredible, i luv the rabbits…well done and good luck 🙂
Beautiful!
The embroidery is just stunning! I really love the shape and style of the apron too, it’s so flattering!
Thank you so much! I got really caught up in the 1860s-1870s during this project, I really love the silhouettes during the transition between crinolines and bustles, it’s a great shape and I just love the Extra-ness of all the ruffles and details.
You should be incredibly proud of this. It is lovely!
I LOVE your embroidery work! I’d planned to make my first historical apron this year and now it simply MUST include embroidery! Fabulous job!
Historical aprons are just so fun, I had such a hard time narrowing down a design for it at first. Embroidery patterns from the 1800s through to about the 1950s is thankfully very easy to find for free, so I had a lot of inspiration from those. My favorite thing was mixing different 1860’s-1870s patterns together to make a new one, I highly recommend it!
Fantastic embroidery! Very well done.
LOOVE the embroidery on this, it’s such a beautiful piece
Beautiful work, and doing these things with health issues is a challenge. You rose to the challenge and acquitted yourself nicely. Love the embroidery pattern. I’m also a fan of Wonderland.
Thank you! It is difficult to do these sorts of things with medical issues, but I like being challenged in this creative sort of way where I have to practice using up as much of my energy as I safely can without pushing myself too far. The embroidery pattern was made by taking several different patterns from the 1860s/early 1870s and sort of Frankenstein-ing them together, which was a load of fun! I had so been wanting to put a clock in the corners of the skirt but I ran out of time. Another project, I suppose!
That looks really good! And the embroidery looks wonderful as well.
I would love to wear this apron.
Oh my goodness!! The embroidery! YUM. It came out stunning!!!
I adore this….. I just love it. I dare not pick up a machine and have a go as I think I need to make something huge and out of my comfort zone…. this is soooooo inspiring soooo thank you. This is beautiful and has now made me decide to make something like an apron to say “hey I have made a start”… thank you xx
so cute! very fairytale feel, so lovely and delicate. you look beautiful ♡ well done!
This is an absolute dream! I love how light and airy it looks like, it suits Alice perfectly I feel! The fit is amazing and those stunning embroidery details! A very impressive piece from top to bottom!
The embroidery is stunning. Beautiful job, well done!
I wish my first project were so detaidel as yours! Keep sewing, you are great!
That’s really pretty, I think your embroidery is amazing ❤️
Such delightful detailing, with the tucks and ruffles and of course that exquisite white-on-white embroidery!
Lovely apron, the embroidery is absolutely beautiful x
I love your apron, the ruffles and embroidery are so pretty 🙂
Your embroidery is charming, and I love how the apron is modeled with a yellow dress (and striped stockings) since that also appeared in original illustrations, in addition to the blue dress we commonly associate with Alice. I also really appreciate that you referenced researching primary sources from the Internet Archive and how you incorporated the literary and historical details into your design.
I absolutely love this apron! The details are amazing, very well done.
That hand embroidery is absolutely fantastic – the perfect fusion of cottagecore and glam
So adorable and the embroidery is very impressive!
Did you know that a bounding bunny is a very hard animal to embroider correctly? You have them stretched just right in stride…they almost look real! Well done! I love aprons, by the way!
Your take on Alice is superb. Such beautiful embroidery. Truly great work!
So pretty! I really like the lace edges!
Wonderful March Hares!!! And beautiful supporting embroidery! The apron is such an important garment for the era.
And adding the striped stockings was a great choice.
That embroidery!!! I am speechless.
Your embroidery is absolutely stunning!