And so, it goes.

The story of a dress can be a straightforward journey from a concept to a sketch to creation.

The new dress I am working on, has a life of its own and it keeps taking me on an unknown journey.

It started with an idea that I got from a photo on Pinterest.

I love the look of the dress. Very detailed and dark. Morticia dress.

I do not know if the design was made by AI or it's an actual design that was made.

I was contemplating on how to go about making the embellishments on the dress.

I have a Cricut machine and used it in the past to create some great embellishments for previous dresses.

I looked at different gothic ornaments and a silhouette of a tree came up and stuck with me.

I named the dress black willow and seeing the tree branch it was just so right.

So, I researched tree branches and found many references saved to the machine and got them ready to be cut.

Then another idea came to mind.

Using puff paint to paint the tree branches.

This way I can paint the branches as I see fit on the dress.

I drew the design and made fabric choices.

I made the pattern and cut a muslin to see how it fits the doll.

The bodice looked great. The only issue was the opening in the front and the placement of the princess seam. Fixed it and cut the dress from black silk organza.

I cut the dress on the bias so the flares at the bottom will not just stand out but flows.

I have done it before with another dress and it looked beautiful.

I treated the edges with Fray check and went on to put the dress together.

For some reason, the dress stretched, and I got uneven parts that could not be matched.

So, I cut the dress again.

The front worked fine and I got to paint the branches with the black puff paint.

I painted the sleeves as well.

Happy with the results, I started putting the back of the dress. The same stretch happened here as well. I did not use the Fray Check on these.

So, I decided to cut the back from silk dupioni.

Now that the back is made from solid opaque silk, I needed to bring some of the opaqueness to the front, so I cut two panels that will go from the side seams and meat at the front.