The Little Black Dress

Belleza's Dress

I've had several people tell me that they were dying to catch a new glimpse of Belleza, my Day of the Dead canvas I'm stitching for Tapestry Fair.  (Several other folks have asked me what on earth one does with a canvas like this once it is stitched, but for me it's the journey, not the end product and she is a model so Belleza's not really something that will live in CH for long.  She will go to Tapestry Fair and visit the trade shows, probably framed.)  This posting is for Belleza's fans.

If you look at the photos of Belleza (purple background) and her companion Pocito (green background) on the upper left corner, you'll see that Belleza wears a rather plain dress.  Pocito's is much fancier with lots of colors, but poor Belleza is wearing basic black if you ignore the lime and black arm trim and the orange/white/purple neck hole trim.  These outfits are called huipil, by the way.  They are a sort of sleeveless tunic.
http://stores.mexicantextileandcraft.com/Page.bok?template=theHuipil

I felt a little sorry for her having such a plain dress and decided I'd dress up the black area somehow to balance out the fancy floral headdress.  But how?  If you've ever stitched with black threads on black painted areas, you know how any fancy stitch disappears.  There isn't enough contrast for the stitch to show up. I decided my options were a) use another color than black and an open stitch to add texture and color; b) use a sparkly black thread and a stitch that would add texture to the huipil; or c) stick to plain black and a simple stitch like basketweave or interlocking gobelin for the dress and let her necklace dominate the area.

I ruled out c) immediately as I wanted to fancy up the area some.  Since there is orange and white and purple and lime green trim on the dress I decided I'd not go with a), either.  There were too many colors I had to make nice with.  That left b) a sparkly black thread.

The Pavilions With a Few Beads Added

I choose to use Silk Lame Braid and a simple modified pavilion stitch for the dress.  Pavilions are diamond-shaped stitches and that shape is roughly the shape of her necklace, so I thought it was appropriate.  You can't really see the stitch shape well in the photograph but it is a diamond with the bottom point empty.  I put a bead there.  I actually used the purple beads in the photo above just because they'd show up well in the stitch guide photo to explain what I was doing but I liked the light lilac shade so well that I ended up beading the entire dress with them.

Hope you like it as much as I do!

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com