Embroidered flowers, a closer look

There’s a limited amount of embroidery detail on the dresses of Alice but I’ve come across an embroiderer Pat Trott. Some of her main work involves creating 3D flowers out of stitch and it’s just when I see this image (of the garden of living flowers) I just think that this technique could be used effectively but yet still be subtle on a costume dress for Alice.

Pat Trott was introduced to embroidery by her mother and hers before her, the passion for it was almost passed down as well. She now teaches workshops and also at schools and colleges to share her embroidery. She has her 17 ‘techniques’ which can then be combined to make a number of different flowers as seen here. The same stitch can be used with different threads and sizes to create different effects and in her book Three-Dimensional Embroidery stitches she explains a shows them all so that anyone can create them as well.

What I like about this style is that I haven’t seen something like it before, and that I can now very easily recreate them myself. Obviously floral is probably one of the main subjects of detail when it comes to textiles but it’s the way the embroidery sits on the fabric, it’s raised which I kind of like.

On a dress for Alice I think perhaps the singular flowers could work as perhaps a border, or maybe a smaller image like this one but just on a pocket and then others dotted around, blending in but still bright enough to catch your attention.