BERNINA Crystal Edition - Wrap dress with crystals

This week we had the pleasure of being one of the first South-African Design Houses to play and create with the BERNINA Crystal Edition.

BERNINA gifted us a stunningly packaged BERNINA Crystal Edition box with the foot attachment and a variety of stunning crystals. As well as the challenge to use designer Katia Converts as inspiration for this project. I love how she combined the crystals with embroidery, and who doesn’t love a good wrap dress?

Adjusting the Pattern

Step 1 was to adapt the pattern to a silhouette that would for for my clientele and that will suit the current warm weather we are having. I decided to add a waist seam to the classic wrap so that we can have a full circle skirt. I also shortened the sleeves and also added some fullness there as the current trend is big dramatic sleeves. Lastly I added a facing around the neckline to make it easier to embroider panels and just to stitch them on later.

Step 2 was to decide on the type of embroidery detail that I wanted to use and how to incorporate it with the crystals provided. I stuck to the silvery colour palette and reduced the size of the embroidery to fit the 3cm broad facings on my dress.

Making The Dress

I then cut the dress from a heavier weight material with a 10-20% stretch. Afterwards I embroidered my triangles in dark grey and silver to compliment my crystals.

After the embroidery I joined all the panels of my dress together. Gave the dress a good press I added the BERNINA Crystals by using the special Crystal Edition foot.