That dress is beautiful, it look like it would keep you busy for a while. Has anyone tried to do yokes and cuff, etc on a western shirt? I want to make shirts for my kids for Christmas (7 year old triplets). Most of the ideas I've seen on pre-made shirts are pretty elaborate for hand work. I have a website, I've been putting out patterns on and I'd like to keep it simply enough to finish in a short time (before other responsibilities take over) like my other projects.
You could appliqué the larger motifs and then embroider the details on them? The appliqués could be cut from plain coloured homespun or prints. Kids' colouring books are a great source for motifs and outline patterns for embroidery. Sometimes they work best if you shrink them (photocopier/scanner) and then transfer them.
Cross stitch really lends itself to embroidery on clothing because it generally stays put. Sometimes, traditional embroidery (satin stitch etc) can get stitches pulled or dislodged by the normal wear and tear of having a kid inside it! You can use waste canvas to cross stitch and it's easy enough to do. Post again if you need help with waste canvas techniques.
You can use dissolving pens (quilters use them for marking quilting patterns) to trace the patterns onto your fabric, but I like to use a finely sharpened lead pencil (2B). If you use a fine enough line and take care to cover it with your embroidery, it won't show. I'm sure there are other methods as well and other posters will help there.
It's *much* easier to embroider on a separate yoke piece before assembling the shirt than it is to embroider on a pre-made one. It probably makes more sense to do the embroidery before cutting out the yoke (in case the fabric stretches while you're stitching on it).
If you wanted a western theme, you could find some cow-flavoured fabric and applique cows/horses and stetsons onto the shirts. The embroidery could put detail on the larger motifs and add, say, cactuses and roadrunners?
Or, you could do Noah's Ark? Spiderman? Harry Potter? Teddy bears (are 7 year-olds too old for that? You don't say if they're boys or girls). Another idea if the embroidery seems too much when multiplied by three is to check out your local quilt shop and purchase a suitable print from there. Cut your shirt pieces from denim or drill or whatever you had in mind and then cut the yokes and cuffs from your printed fabric. If you wanted to add embroidery, then you could enhance the prints by embroidering outlines or details to highlight them. You can get all sorts of great prints from quilt shops - I even got one of Australian owls!
Best of luck with your project (it sounds like a lot of fun) and do let us know what you decide to do, won't you?
Thanks for all of the suggestions, I'll try out some of your ideas. (I haven't had much luck with the water soluble pens, either; they seem to bleed out to much. Pencils do work much better. Oh, 2 girls,
I just thought to add that a nice idea for little girls is shadow work done on voile or swiss cotton. This would work particularly well with a lined yoke as the wrong side would be covered and hence protected from wear. You can google 'shadow work' or 'shadow embroidery' to see how it's done. You just herringbone stitch on the wrong side of the fabric and the shadow shows through on the right side. I've made lovely baby dress yokes using this technique and simple hand-drawn designs.
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