Janome Skyline S9: Embroidered Dress

When I first got word that the machine I would be testing from Janome was an embroidery machine, my mind started racing with apparel ideas. Embroidery can add amazing detail to a project and bring it to the next level. I had been debating whether or not to make a piece of apparel to embroider or buy a ready to wear look. A trip to Target decided that for me when I made the mistake of walking past the apparel section one day and saw this really cute dress.

I am extremely picky about buying clothing but when you really fall in love with something at first sight, it's ok to splurge. The shape was adorable; I loved the detail on the back and I only have one black dress in my wardrobe which is sleeveless and summery, so I thought this was a great fall/winter version of a little black dress.

What solidified my decision to embroider this particular dress was actually looking though the back of the sewing machine instruction book at the design chart.

There are some wonderful types of embroidery this machine offers, already built in. The one my clutch was made with is a typical embroidery design. This machine also has Cross Stitch Designs which is a design made out of small x's. I've recently taken up cross stitching as a portable hobby and it is very time consuming. So to have a machine that whips out a design like this is so cool!

I chose to do a simple border design to not overwhelm the dress itself. Keeping the cross stitch pattern in a solid color also kept the sophistication of the dress, which is what I was going for. I couldn't believe how easy it was to add all this detail to the dress. Set up your hoop, press start, and off you go!

Putting embroidery on this dress was a little dangerous because right after I was ready to tear apart my closet to embroider everything! I was lucky to have so many other projects going on because there would have been a lot more pieces in my wardrobe with embroidered flowers on them.

And as a side note, this machine also has lace designs, which I made a few of for photos! These are really cool, almost 3D like, and come out similar to patches.

Have I sold you on this machine yet? If not, don't worry, I have one more project to share- and it's a great gift idea!