Reader’s Embroidery: Embellished Skirt!

Maria likes beads and sparkly stuff! And she sews well! Combining these two interests, she made a really nice A-line skirt which she embroidered and then embellished with sequins and beads. Read on to see the results – she did a really fantastic job, I think!

Bead embroidery, which often includes pailettes or sequins or spangles (I’m never absolutely sure what the difference is – they are all defined the same way in some sources and differently in others), is a great way to embellish anything, but when you embellish clothes with beads and so forth, you can really make a statement!

Maria put together a somewhat simple A-line skirt in what appears to be a kind of light wool, in a warm brown color. She picked out a motif that is somewhat paisley-ish, turned it into a repeat design, transferred it with dressmaker’s carbon (I think that’s what she said), and stitched on the shape in a lighter goldish-brown embroidery floss. Once the shape was embroidered on, it was a matter of embellishing the shape with sequins and bugle beads, then doing the finish work on the skirt!

So here’s the skirt:

Nice, isn’t it? She alternated between gold colored spangles and silver colored ones. These are the round, flat “sequins” – no bumps or ridges in them (spangles?). They look like the spangles I use for goldwork, only they aren’t gold.

Here’s a bit of a close-up on the repeat.

And here it is, even closer up, so you can see the difference in colors on the spangles and on the bugle beads.

And there’s the corner flower.

Fun skirt!! I think she did a great job! It was time-consuming, but I think it was worth the effort, don’t you??

Thanks, Maria!