Storyteller Mieke Oostveen has been part of the Twig + Tale community for several years, and it's been such a joy to watch her style evolve, especially with the addition of her beautiful hand embroidery. What started as a tentative try at a T+T embroidery pattern has blossomed into dresses, jackets, dungarees, and children's clothes, each carrying her own thoughtful touch - a signature in stitches.
Here, Mieke shares the story of sewing a Plains Dress that fits her style - solid coloured fabric in a beautiful, earthy colour and subtle but exquisite embroidered details.
You know when someone points at your clothes and asks if you've made them yourself? You say yes, and they say: "Ah, I can see that".
Back in the day, I always saw this as an insult. You shouldn't be able to see that my clothes aren't store-bought. But lately, this has changed. Partly because I am now better at sewing, but also because I love it when things are handmade! Plus, all clothes are handmade, and I like the fact that (most of) mine aren't made by underpaid workers.
So, how do you show that you made your clothes? How do you leave your signature?
When I joined the Storytellers for the first time back in 2022, I decided to try my hand at embroidery. I chose the Bunny in the Woods embroidery pattern and didn't have high hopes, as I am very impatient, not very neat, and like a quick result. But it turned out to be exactly what I needed. Here you see my first embroidery ever:
The instructions were very clear and I quickly got the hang of it. And the rest is history, I guess. I've embroidered dresses, jackets, dungarees and a lot of children's clothes. In the evening, when the kids are sleeping and I am tired, I don't always want to pull out my sewing machine and risk waking them, but I still want to create, so embroidery is perfect.
But I also quickly find certain colour or fabric combinations too much - I actually like plain clothes. For example, I don't wear a flowery or striped shirt underneath my embroidered Hedgerow Dungarees.
So how do I then leave a subtle signature?
For my "signature" project, I wanted to keep it simple, and so I chose the Plains Dress. It is actually not simple at all, nor plain either! The pattern has been out for a while now, but I never really thought it would suit me. The fun thing about the T+T Treehouse community is that you see a LOT of other people making the same patterns, but they all turn out so differently! I have two 'style icons' amongst my fellow Storytellers (yes, it's you Janna and Fanny) and I always get inspired by their makes. After seeing the Plains Dress on Janna, I suddenly loved it!
At first, I wanted to use a blue viscose/linen blend which was pretty heavy. I thought it would go well with some big, chunky embroidery. But I didn't have enough fabric and so I switched to a dark green viscose from my stash. It's a very thin, elegant fabric, and demanded a completely different signature. During my most recent book haul, I bought the book Embroidered Botanicals by Yumiko Higuchi, and I fell for a small tree embroidery. But as I was going for plain and subtle, I wanted to do the embroidery in only one colour. I decided to just go for it and leave out the 'hearts' of the tree (where the French knots are in the example) empty. I could always fill them up if it looked weird.
First I made the whole dress, but after finishing the neckline with bias binding I realized the fabric needed some kind of stabilizer for the embroidery to sit well. So I unpicked the neckline and ironed stabilizer on the dress so that it would strengthen the thin fabric where the embroidery would be. I traced the tree onto a piece of wash away-stabilizer and started stitching! I used two strands of DMC-ecru for the whole tree and when I washed off the stabilizer I was actually very happy with how it turned out! Afterwards I added a facing to finish the neckline and also to hide the back of the embroidery. I used a chain stitch to ‘topstitch’ the neckline.
For me, this was the perfect way to leave a subtle signature on my new favourite dress. How do you leave your signature on clothes?
