At the end of the last blog post I had removed all of the appliques from the skirt, with the exception of the stems. The skirt had her fourth treatment in Rit dye remover and I was pretty thrilled to discover that the dye appeared to be completely gone. The appliques were damaged beyond restoration by the dye remover.

The felt that I ordered from Etsy arrived and I was pretty happy to discover that the pink that I ordered was the same as the one I had already, plus another one that was lighter but matched perfectly with the skirt. I already had two shades of green felt that I had purchased from the local store.

I had also ordered some off white felt, I wasn't sure what I would use that for yet, but it later came in handy. I also had two sheets of the two shades of pink and greens and one sheet of the off white.

I disassembled one of the flowers to see how it was constructed and I used it as a template to cut out new petals. Initially I was thinking of keeping the flowers one colour, so I asked my Instagram followers for their opinion and they voted strongly that the flowers should be two shades of pink. The people have spoken!

Just on the topic of the colour of the flowers.. I genuinely don't know what colour these flowers were originally. So I used some creative licence and decided to continue with a soft pink theme, though it is possible that the original flowers were a darker shade of pink or even possibly light purple or lilac.

Meanwhile I also started cutting out the leaf shapes. The leaves are in two sizes a larger and smaller leaf and are cut in the two different green felts. I measured the leaves that were originally on the skirt and created a pattern from this, however I did not adhere strictly to the pattern, as I made some leaves thinner and longer and other leaves wider and shorter, just as in nature. I didn't want this skirt to be laser perfect, I wanted it to have the character of the original.

I had also created a pattern for the flower petals and leaves. There are three different sizes of petals there is a very small, a medium and a large petal. When I was cutting the flower petals I also made them vary slightly and didn't strictly stick to the pattern for every single one. When I constructed the flowers I would use anywhere from 11 to 13 petals and no flowers are the same, every one is a little different to the other, just as in nature.

The petals are affixed by sewing them on to a circular felt base plate, this is a photo of a completed flower from behind.

After constructing all of the flowers and cutting out all of the leaves it was time to work on the flower stems. I wanted to use the flower stems that were still attached to the skirt as a pattern, so I started gently and gingerly unpicking these stems which were sewn onto the skirt by machine.

Sadly, despite my effort to be very gentle, in a similar way to the felt flowers, the wool felt stems had deteriorated, so before I removed them all, I took measurements of the length of each of the stems as well as photographs of how they sat on the skirt. The stems were not perfectly straight, they had a gentle curve in their shape and had curved ends.

Using these measurements, I cut the stems out of the darker felt and placed them onto the skirt. I fastidiously ensured that the stems sat over the top of the original stitching so I knew that the shape was aligned to the original stems. Once I was satisfied I pinned the stems onto the skirt and made any further small adjustments. 

Then I tacked on the stems and pinned on the leaves and flowers to check the placement. I would adjust the leaf placement multiple more times before this skirt is finished, I took some snaps as this is really when the skirt started to look like she had originally, you could already see how beautiful she would become.

I shared these photos with my Instagram followers and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I knew I was on the right track.

Please pardon the washing on the clothes line!

The next step was to attach the stems to the skirt. The original stitching was quite short in length, and I wanted to replicate this as much as possible. Before jumping in and sewing on the stems, I tested by using some felt and fabric offcuts to make sure the sewing tension was correct and the stitch length was what I wanted. By testing using offcuts I was able to adjust the tension and stitch length to exactly where I wanted it to be. I was now ready to sew the stems onto the skirt!

I had already tacked on the stems so they were nice and secure, at the beginning of each stem I would reverse stitch for around 1 inch, in the same way as the original and I repeated this when I would reach the end of the stem. So there's no way these stems will be easily loosening.

After sewing on all of the stems, I unpicked the tacking and I was feeling pretty good! I could really see this skirt coming together!

It was now time to attach the blossoms onto the skirt. I pinned all the flowers where I wanted them to go, and then I attached the base plate of each blossom to the skirt using a blind stitch.

Once all of the blossoms were attached then I could take another look at the leaf placement. I used the original photos of the skirt from Bridget and attempted to exactly duplicate the placement of the leaves.

I looked at all of the photos and from all angles until I was satisfied that I had them in their as close to original position as possible. In addition, I had left the original threads in place and I used these to help guide where the leaves needed to be located.

I used two different colours of DMC thread and darning needles to attach the leaves. I used backstitch on the leaves and in order to get a true vein effect, I used both colours and I alternated using one stich and two stitches in each colour. 

Once the leaves were attached, I took a deep breath of relief. She was almost complete. I am not going to sugar coat this process, sewing on the leaves took a long time, it took lots of manipulation of the fabric, felt and needle - it was very fiddly and took a lot of patience. The video makes it look like it was quick, but it wasn't!

The next step was a review of the scattered petals that were on the skirt, these were all the smallest size. I compared the skirt with the photographs and then carefully sewed on the petals onto the skirt. This was quite challenging as it was difficult to see from the photos where the placement of these petals were, so I used some more creative licence to make some reasonable guesstimates on where they were located.

Also a note on the trim at the bottom of the skirt. This is also made of wool felt and had been affected the same way as the felt elsewhere on the skirt, however it is still mostly intact. I did not remove and replace this felt but I will consider it should there be any further deterioration.

Once that was done... SHE WAS FINISHED

At this point I felt a combination of relief, excitement and exhaustion. I was not tired at all of looking at this skirt, she is so incredibly beautiful. My hands and wrists were aching from all of the hand sewing, my eyes were fatigued from the detailed work. Despite this, I was so excited to share the end result with my Instagram followers, many of them expressed how invested they were in seeing the end result. This was as exciting for them as it was for me, and I was thrilled to share it with them.

The following day I gave her a final press and then she was ready for her finale debut. I took her to my studio, set up the lights and my dress form so I could capture her beauty.

SOME BEFORE AND AFTERS...

The label remains intact however the black wording has discoloured to a light pink.

Thanks goes to...

Juli Lynne Charlot for designing and creating such a masterpiece. This skirt is truly is a work of art and I have an immense appreciation for beautiful garments designed by JLC. Thank you for creating something so special and I am honoured to have restored her. I hope that I have done you proud.

Special thanks to Bridget from @bewitchingvintageclothing for selling her to me and allowing me the opportunity to undertake this restoration.

Thank you to Kerry Taylor from Kerry Taylor auctions for information on this skirt's provenance.

Thank you to the wonderful people at the Vintage Fashion Guild for their support, expertise and encouragement. They are truly magnificent and incredibly knowledgeable people.

What I used for this restoration: (note all of these links are for Australia, but most of these can be obtained overseas or you can buy online)

1. The Laundress All Purpose Bleach Alternative
2. Detergent to launder the skirt after the dye treatment. I used The Laundress Signature Detergent though I used the unscented version which is not available to purchase in Australia (I buy mine from the US)
3.  Rit Dye Remover - Available at Spotlight or from Amazon 
4. 2 sheets of Baby Pink Wool Felt from Felt Craft Studio on Etsy
5. 2 sheets of Barely Pink Wool Felt from Felt Craft Studio on Etsy
6. 1 sheet of Ivory coloured Wool Felt, similar to this one from Felt Craft Studio on Etsy
7. 2 sheets of Forest Green Wool Felt from Material Obsession
8. 2 sheets of Leaf Green Wool Felt from Material Obsession
9. Gutermann Polyester thread in colour 237 Dark Green
10. Gutermann Polyester thread in colour 659 Peachy Pink
11. Thread for basting/tacking - you can use any type of sewing thread for this or you can use specific basting thread.
12. Sewing needles like these ones from Spotlight
13. DMC Embroidery Thread 561 Very Dark Jade
14. DMC Embroidery Thread 368 Light Pistachio Green
15. Darning Needles like these ones from Spotlight
16. Sharp embroidery scissors like these ones
17. You will also need access to a sewing machine to sew on the stems to the skirt