Ukrainian Embroidered Lace Dress

hand ukrainian embroider dress sewing

Khrys­tos Voskres! Christ is risen!

Phew! Lent is over and true to tra­di­tion; I bare­ly fin­ished my annu­al East­er dress for East­er Mass.

Every year at this time, I design and sew a Ukrain­ian inspired East­er dress. This year, I had trou­ble choos­ing between 4 dress designs. So by the time I nailed down a design and start­ed the embroi­dery, it was already half way through Lent.

Blue Ukrainian Embroidered Dress

A cou­ple weeks ago when I real­ized there was no way I would be able to fin­ish the embroi­dery before East­er, I dug through my mom’s box of embroi­dery she received from my babcha. In the box, I found some beau­ti­ful bright blue and pur­ple men’s shirt embroi­dery from Ukraine.

You would think it would be easy for me once I had the embroi­dery. But unfor­tu­nate­ly, this made the design process hard­er! It was hard to fig­ure out a com­bi­na­tion of fab­ric, col­or, embroi­dery, design, and fit that worked together.

I’m embar­rassed to admit that I was like­ly in more pain Fri­day night try­ing to come up with an East­er dress design, than my sis­ter who was hav­ing labor contractions.

Blue Ukrainian embroidery

I final­ly nailed down the design the day before East­er. It was right in front of me and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it soon­er!! I decid­ed to use Bur­dastyle 02/2015 #129 Dress pat­tern (size 36). 

embroidered tunic

I start­ed embroi­der­ing a Bur­dastyle #123 linen dress last spring, so I already had the dress pieces cut. (I had to cut some new pieces since a few of the orig­i­nals had embroi­dery start­ed on them.)

This pat­tern turned out to be per­fect! It was both a design I was itch­ing to make for myself, and it incor­po­rat­ed most of my embroi­dery design ideas! It also allowed me to put a fem­i­nine & mod­ern spin on the Ukrain­ian men’s shirt and use all the embroi­dery pieces with­out cut­ting them!

Ukrainian blue embroidered dress

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I made a cou­ple changes to the pattern. 

I added the back invis­i­ble zip­per to make the head open­ing larg­er. This pre­vents me from get­ting make-up on the dress when dress­ing and undress­ing..

The dress looked a lit­tle shape­less and boxy on me, so I added the back gath­er­ing and belt. It also looks less like a Ukrain­ian men’s vest­ment with the gath­ered back waistline.

Ukrainian Embroidery Dress Lace Linen Easter

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Ukrainian Embroidery Dress Lace Linen Easter

Over­all, I am very hap­py with the dress! It very much reflects my style and taste. I don’t think I could’ve come up with a bet­ter dress with the time I had to spare and mate­ri­als I had in stock.

Even­tu­al­ly, I will fin­ish the oth­er planned dress design and (maybe) post about it on the blog. It will be inter­est­ing to com­pare the two projects!

I hope you had a nice East­er! Enjoy spring!!

Ukrainian Embroidery Dress Lace Linen Easter  

Ukrainian Embroidered Lace Dress

lace linen dress

Ukrainian Embroidery Dress Lace Linen Easter

embroidered linen tunic

 Ukrainian Embroidered lace Dress

Ukrainian Embroidery Dress Ukrainian Embroidered Lace Dress

Here are work in progress photos. 

Thanks again to the fam­i­ly & friends who gave me late night East­er Vig­il feedback/suggestions! You’re the best!!

8 thoughts on “Ukrainian Embroidered Lace Dress

  1. MarjorieTrundle

    Stun­ning. What a beau­ti­ful dress which keeps your fam­i­ly cul­ture alive and well.

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thank you Mar­jorie! I hope you had a nice East­er as well!

      Reply

  2. Melwyk

    So beau­ti­ful! What a won­der­ful way to incor­po­rate ready-made embroi­deries, and car­ry your babcha with you in a way. I love the colours of the men’s bands and it works per­fect­ly with the shape of this dress. Hap­py Easter!

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thank you Mel­wyk! I was lucky to have found the embroi­dery! (There was no way I could fin­ish the embroi­dery I started.)
      The pieces may have been embroi­dered by my babcha, but we’re pret­ty sure that rel­a­tives from Ukraine sent it to her.
      I hope you had a won­der­ful East­er too!

      Reply

  3. Thewallinna

    The dress is so beau­ti­ful! Any Ukrain­ian girl, me includ­ed, would be hap­py to wear it! You picked a per­fect dress pat­tern, which, paired with the fab­ric and embroi­dery, con­veys the atmos­phere of a tra­di­tion­al shirt 🙂 I am quite curi­ous about the fab­ric though, did you apply lace on top of linen?

    Reply

  4. idaaidasewing

    this dress is fan­tas­tic, I real­ly admire embroi­dery and it’s some­thing I would like to learn and insert in my sewing project.

    Reply

  5. Natalie

    I am a big fan of yours! Your work is stun­ning. Thank you for shar­ing your pas­sion which is very con­tages. I am also Ukrain­ian by her­itage liv­ing in the Czech Repub­lic. You are a true inspi­ra­tion for me. Natalka

    Reply

    1. marusya

      Thank you for the sup­port and kind words Natal­ka! You’ll enjoy one of my future posts! (I can’t post any­thing until after Ukrain­ian Christ­mas since the pieces are Christ­mas gifts for fam­i­ly.) It’ll inspire you if you do your own Ukrain­ian embroidery 😉

      ~Mary Grace

      Reply

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