Embroidery Experiments

Cranking out the commission work, pics of all soon.  Meanwhile, in between projects, I've been experimenting with some hand-embroidered accents on some of the new Viking pieces I've been making for myself...

A plain, black underdress, now with blue and green layers of chain stitching and a thread-covered wooden bead button.
This is my very first thread-covered button! :D 

Hand-stitched accents on a blue "apron dress" to go over the black (and yes, this is all the same dress. The camera really
dislikes this color. The bottom left is fairly close to the real color of the fabric).

...and on one of my commission pieces:

An applique' cut from a piece of patterened fabric, painted and then applied to a neckline outer facing, and then
edge-stitched with a plain chain stitch to accent the facing a bit.

I've been trying to remember to clock various elements of my projects - sewing seams, setting sleeves and gores, finishing hems, all sorts of things, just for my own records.  The embroidery on the black dress, while I didn't remember to set my phone's stopwatch, took me all of Guardians of the Galaxy and  The Incredible Hulk to make, LOL.  The blue apron dress took about six hours, start to finish, or approximately both Thors and half of Captain America (I did actually time that one, and it worked out to nearly exactly six hours).  The applique' on the green dress took about half an hour to paint, not including drying time; about half an hour to machine-sew to the dress, and then all the embroidery took about three hours.  I think I binge-watched old episodes of Forensic Files for that one.  I may not be making very good headway with the actual stopwatch, but at least now I know if I'm going to embroider clothing I'd better have a stack of stuff on the DVR lined up, LOL.  ;) 

*