Making a Midsummer Ball Gown | DIY evening dress (inspired by Persephone)

Описание: Hello and welcome to my first * summery * sewing project of the year!
This dress is an upcycling project which was mostly inspired by the woods / outdoors at this time of year. I was also really interested in the concept of midsummer’s day, so I wanted to make something that reminded me of the forest in spring. That's why I decided to use the myth of Persephone as design inspiration, because Persephone is both the queen of the underworld and the goddess of spring - so I embroidered the top half of the dress with flowers (to represent the new season) and left the bottom half black (to represent the night).

Inspiration aside, my excuse for making another dress in the middle of exam season is that it’s nearly the end of term at uni ... so please forgive the ridiculously unnecessary nature of this project (I needed something to wear to a ball) and enjoy 5 minutes of me chopping up bits of fabric - see below for embroidery details! Also, one thing I am weirdly happy about is that none of the birdsong featured in this video is a sound effect. It's all real (and those birds were surprisingly noisy)!

***

EMBROIDERY DETAILS
Flowers featured / used for embroidery inspiration*
bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
snowdrops (Galanthus)
roses
daffodils (Narcissus)
wild garlic (Allium sativum)
daisy
livingstone daisy (Dorotheanthus bellidiformis)
sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus)
clematis
mock orange blossom (Philadelphus Coronarius)
bleeding heart (Dicentra)
azalea (Rhododendron)
iris
lupin
snapdragon (Antirrhinum)
jasmine
peony
magnolia
sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum)
buddleia
aquilegia
gladioli

in the video I think I said I’d embroider the TOP half with constellations and the BOTTOM half with flowers, but I ended up doing this the other way round because trying to embroider a skirt made of stretch fabric would have been pretty impossible. So, I ended up doing the (non-stretch) TOP with the flowers and the BOTTOM to look like the night.

Have a great start to the summer & check out my other socials for more:
Instagram @anna_bailey_sewing