Refashion: Plain Gingham to Embroidered Loveliness

 

 

At the last Value Village sale I picked up a cute but very plain little Gingham dress for $2.50 for my little lady and just knew exactly what it needed, don't you love those simple refashions where you just know at first sight?

 

 Now my little one is a bit of a tomboy so it's a struggle to get her into anything without trouser legs, short of rolling her in a blanket and sitting on her. I showed this off to her the next day and she ASKED ME if she could try it on, and (gulp) she even wore it for half a day, yes it even lasted through two meal times which is an all time record. I failed to get a non blurry photo of her, (usual story) but the fact she wore it and loved it is a winner for me.

It was a quick turn around for this refashion, I know the stitching looks complicated to the untrained eye but it's nothing more than a handful of stitches. Running stitch, cross stitch and an easy peasy woven stitch. Yep super simple but it looks so fancy and adds a little vintage flavour to a plain expanse of Gingham.

 

If you're wondering what this kind of embroidery is it's called any of these names Chickenscratch/Broderie Suisse/Snowflaking and I absolutely love it. From afar the stitching looks like Smocking but it can be applied to a finished dress unlike Smocking which has to be completed first.
 

 

Want to see more of my attempts at Chicken Scratch? 
 check here for links to tutorials and here for more.
 

Anyone else notice that I did the stitching on the back of the dress? Good job it won't take me too long to do the same on the front too!