Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Spider Stain Removal: The Little Miss Muffet Dress


The Miss Muffet Dress

Another score from the Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale: a diminutive little cotton lawn dress with a host of problems. The collar and sleeves were unfinished and fraying, the back closure had never been added, and the sleeve openings were too small for the almost-three-year old I wanted to give this to. Otherwise the garment was cunningly stitched, clearly homemade, with hand-sewn embroidery at the collar. Why did the creator abandon this project part way through? Closer inspection revealed the answer: stains on the upper left back. I've used many stain-obscuring techniques in the past from Mend Writing to Spirals. I have never, however, used spiders.

Spiders concealing stains

It turns out that once you start stitching spiders it's hard to stop.

Spider concealing nothing

more spiders...

and more spiders...

and more spiders...

Finally I had 12 spiders on what turned out to be a Little Miss Muffet Dress (poem follows). In the process I hemmed the collar and sleeves after creating a wider opening for the sleeves and added a back snap.

Miss Muffet front

Miss Muffet back

And a reminder of the words to the classic children's poem that is over 200 years old, dating back to 1804:

Little Miss Muffet
sat on a tuffet
eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider
that sat down beside her
and frightened Miss Muffet away.

One can only imagine how this poem will be played out when the dress is worn by a three-year-old.

ta da
 

1 comment:

  1. I once embellished a black velvet coat with a silver spider's web and a dangling spider, a garment passed down through friends and family for many years. Love your spider dress, guaranteed to be a favourite.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails