Stumpwork - Part 4 - Dressing my lady

The next step was to start on her dress, this had caused me so much dilemma during the process that I gave up on the pink apron and hat I was originally going to add, and threw caution to the wind so to speak and changed colour altogether.

I still stayed with the yellow lace and yellow chiffon for the petticoat, the photograph above shows the lace for the petticoat.
Next came the under skirt part of the petticoat, this was a bit trickier to place, as I wanted the windswept illusion.

Sewing one side first, and then attaching the other side over the swing seat. At this stage I was still going to use the pink apron and hat, but then placed it on top but it just didn’t seem to fit, the colours were all wrong, so I put it aside and kept covering the body with the chiffon.

I made my shoulders with more white felt and made my head from a slip. The slip is a small circle drawn onto some calico, approximately 3/4 inch in diameter. Gathered around the line, and pulled tight with some toy stuffing on the inside, securing the thread. I then took the needle through to the front side of the face, and going from right to left and just catching a small amount of stuffing, and calico I made the nose. Then using the same thread, secured the head to the background around the edge.

Once I had placed my head on top of my shoulders, I stepped back to make sure my portions were keeping true to her size. I painted her face an off fawn colour, using my pastel watercolour crayons. This photo shows the petticoat finished, with head and arms in place.

Now to my dilemma of her dress, I found some material that I had picked up from the UK, and placed on my piece, it was exactly what I wanted.

As the material was already gathered it was easy to get the flowing effect I was looking for. I used yellow satin ribbon to pull the material in at the waist, wrists and the neck. Using the yellow chiffon for the sleeves.

Now that ‘My Lady’ was dressed, next she needed hair. I didn’t want dark hair as it would be too close to the tree colour, and white or yellow blond was too light, Coffee dyed silk Boucle' turned out perfect, as you can see in these next two photographs; white would not do, but the coffee colour perfect.

Thanks to my friend Barb from Fibers for her help with this decision. My next stage was to add facial features. I had added two chain stitch for the outer part of the eyes, and using blue thread I did two colonial stitches for the eye balls, apparently we need to do a black dot for the pupil of the eye. Lips were done with another larger detached chain in pink.  Oops, I still need to add eye brow's too.

Part 1 Inspiration
Part 2 Tree and Background
Part 3 The under layers of my lady.
Part 4 adding dress, head, hair
Part 5 hat
Part 6 finishing touches


TTFN
Arlene