I have never done embroidery before. I have done cross-stitch but never embroidery. So now I have to learn. So I am taking a hand-embroidery class at Craftsy: Design It, Stitch It: Hand Embroidery, by Jessica Marquez. I have been learning a lot from it.
As for the embroidery designs, the design that comes with the pattern is incorrect. I got some close up of the embroidery.
Then I searched online for the embroidery patterns. I figured if someone already did the work to design the embroidery patterns, then I wouldn’t have to do so much work. I found the perfect pattern on DeviantArt.
These designs are made by MomoKurumi and can be found in her DeviantArt gallery here: http://momokurumi.deviantart.com/gallery/40329283/Cosplay-Tutorials-Patterns-Progress. I had to resize them to fit a little girls dress but they look very good.
I plan to interface the entire skirt and bodice front with cotton woven fusible interfacing, which will also act as a stabilizer for the embroidery. The top I had to make some changes already. Apparently the light blue gets overlaid over the black to make it appear to have an undershirt, but since I am using black velveteen which would be under a lightweight cotton, it would not work. So I am going to switch it up with some changes. The black will be on top of the blue and I will be using that lightweight cotton as a lining to guard against the embroidery against skin.
Now to get started with the embroidery!