Little Girls' Peppermint Dress

If you have a child's dress purchased from a discount store or Goodwill-type store, adding stitched and embroidered embellishments is an easy way to make it look like a boutique-store purchase. For Christmas, we love the Kreinik holographic threads for these embellishments — the bright colors and shimmer just seem to capture the fun of the season.

Materials needed:

• Little girl's red and white dress
• two 5" pieces of red felt, different shades
• one 4" piece of green felt
• Threads: (we used threads in the Make Mine 3-D: Holographic thread set by Kreinik) Kreinik 1/8" Ribbon in holographic color 001L Solar Silver, 1/16" Ribbon in 003L Robot Red, Kreinik Very Fine #4 Braid in holographic color 031L Berry Red
• clear monofilament thread
• Kreinik Custom Corder™

Instructions:
1. First we couched a row of the 1/8" Ribbon in 001L Solar Silver along the red band on the dress. On your own dress, look for large areas like this or ribbon areas (like cuffs, collars, hems) and decorate with the ribbon. Couch using the clear monofilament thread.

2. Next, make your felt flowers. Cut out two flower shapes, one from each piece of red felt. Use a cookie cutter flower shape as a guide or do it free form - the flowers don't have to be perfect. Make one slightly larger than the other. Embellish the larger flower by doing a button stitch around the edge with Very Fine #4 Braid. Embellish the smaller flower by doing a running stitch to replicate petals.

Use your Custom Corder and colors of 1/8" Ribbon to make candy-cane twisted cording (click here to see instructions that come with the corder.)  Next, put the small flower on top of the large flower. Attach the cording to the felt flowers using the clear monofilament thread. Couch it in a coil in the center of the smaller flower and sew through all layers.

Cut a leaf shape out of felt or use a silk flower leaf you may have on hand, and sew or tack the leaf behind one side of the flower.

Sew or tack the finished flower to the dress in hidden stitches (behind the flower).

Kreinik metallic threads are hand and machine washable. You don't want to iron directly onto the metallic, however; use a press cloth and no steam.

Printing Instructions:
Click here to download the instructions for this project.  You will need the FREE program Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print PDF's of our free patterns. If you have problems downloading the pattern, send a #10 self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Little Girls' Peppermint Dress, PO Box 1966, Parkersburg, WV 26102.