Guest Tutorial: Paris and Poodles, an Embroidered Affair

I'd like you all to meet Cassie, who we are lucky to have here doing a special guest post! I was super-impressed by her hand-embroidered Sailor Girl skirt and her Cowgirl skirt.

I love that Cassie embroiders on clothes, and her adorable vintage style. Today Cassie is sharing 2 of her most recent embroidered wardrobe pieces with us, as well as her doodles, if you'd like to stitch them, too! 

Everyone, meet Cassie! :)




I have this habit of getting on a kick. If it’s a favorite CD, I will wear that thing out, memorizing all the songs and working out all the dance moves. In my head, of course. I have the same addictive personality when it comes to candy. And coffee drinks. And crafts. Oh, and, strangely, wearing a bumpit countless days in a row. But I digress.


So my addictive habit led me down what I call the Paris and Poodles Path. It began with this oh-so-short thrifted dress (can I get an ohhh-lala?). I love breathing new life into thrift shop garb and this dress was just asking for a redo.

I began by letting out the hem and removing the pockets. I found this formerly-a-curtain vintage floral fabric in my stash and decided it would look lovely at the bottom of my dress. I had this idea that I wanted it to look like I was walking through a flower garden. Or being eaten alive by vintage fabric. Which, with my hoarder ways, the latter is more likely the case.

Before adding the vintage fabric to the skirt, I hemmed it and created a circle of fabric that was the same circumference as the bottom of the dress. Then I pinned it to the dress and applique stitched around the edge of the flowers. Once that was complete, I had the super duper fun pleasure of trimming all of the excess fabric off the top. I managed to cut into the skirt accidentally only once... which I promptly patched after saying a few naughty words and throwing a couple of things.

My favorite part was embroidering the Eiffel Tower. I began by drawing the tower out
and tracing that drawing onto the dress with a white pencil. I used thick embroidery floss for the outline of the tower and two strands of floss for the detailing. Once complete, I channeled my Parisian habit to French Poodles…

This prissy pooch actually took longer to embroider because of the size. She’s very small and detailed. I decided to use just one strand of floss and the tiniest of stitches for this embroidery.

The inspiration for the poodle actually came courtesy of Elvis Presley’s mother Gladys. I snapped this photo of the wallpaper from her bathroom on a recent trip to Graceland.

To Parisian-ize my poodle, I added the beret. And the hoity toity attitude.

I sewed the dress from a vintage 1960’s pattern including some of the most adorable Tammis Keefe fabric. I’d like to be able to say I’ve moved on from Paris and Poodles but I’m currently embroidering the Eiffel Tower onto a pair of shoes and whipping up another French-themed dress. See, I told you I have a problem. And until they make meds to cure this kind of crazy, you can see more of creations on my blog: cassiestephens.blogspot.com, if you like. Au revoir!