What to do with a hole ... or two ... or three ... - Part 1

The moment had finally arrived, I was ready to embroider on clothing for the first time.
The reason for that was simple. Let me tell you a bit about my life as an eternal non-fashionista who doesn't buy a lot of clothes.

I own the same cotton dress in six different colors with different necklines (and another color in rayon). It has everything I want and really makes me happy - empire style with A-line skirt, midi length, 3/4 sleeves, and pockets! And I got all of them on sale at different times.
They are my clothing workhorses meaning I have been wearing them at home pretty much exclusively for the last year (I got the first one more than two years ago and then went crazy with a sale last year, actually the only clothes I bought at all).
They are comfortable, they have pretty colors, and have I mentioned they have pockets (so perfect)?
Outside I have hardly ever worn dresses, one reason is that my feet had become very intolerant towards cute shoes years ago. So there I wear jeans with longshirts in A-line and with 3/4 sleeves which I also have in several colors.

I know that will sound incredibly boring to some of you, but for me it was great to have found the one design that really made me happy because it combined everything. Including pockets.
Of course that means those dresses get washed a lot and are also exposed to cat claws a lot.
Which to blame I don't always know - maybe it was even a vegan moth although I doubt it 😁 - but the tiny holes typical for that kind of jersey started appearing here and there.

Washing machine or cat claw -
we'll never know.

Gundel hates me putting something on her allergy spots (I'm glad it's not necessary often anymore, excuse me while I go knocking on wood violently).
Well, actually it's not so much the gel itself, she simply hates being picked up. Other than Meffi who used to turn into an catopus with a seemingly countless number of clawed tentacles windmilling around when I picked her up, Gundel's claws aim for the first thing to hook into, a cushion, a blanket ... my dress ... and of course it's impossible to get them back out of it because the more you try to help her, the more she will suspect attempted murder and hold on. Then she will take the next chance to escape ... and either dragging the pillow or blanket with her or put a hole in my dress as she can't take me with her (don't advise me to clip her claws, it makes no difference in such life-threatening situations (from her point of view), I know what I'm talking about).
In one case, she was lying on my chest, stretched, hooked in, and when I tried to get her claw out of my dress sleeve, she freaked for no reason, pulled and ran. That one became more of a slit than a hole.

Although I only wear the dresses at home, I of course don't change for accepting deliveries or taking down the trash or even sitting in the garden. So while the holes are mostly tiny and there are only one or two in a dress, it started bugging me and I wanted to do something about them.
I had never tried visible mending before, invisible mending was definitely out (tried it once on a t-shirt and wasn't impressed with myself), but of course I had a box full of embroidery thread.
Before you say something now, I'm aware that embroidery is not the best for clothing that goes through the washing machine all the time (no hand washing these big dresses) even if I use a mild detergent, a net, etc. That's part of the experimenting and I'm completely reckless and ready for repairs or even ripping out. That means of course that I don't plan to be doing super complicated designs. My hands would probably not be up to that, anyway.

My first experiment were some stars, I had found the instructions on the Instagram of pick.and.stitch. Mine are not perfect, far from it, but it was my first attempt on clothing, on a slightly flexible fabric, and because I'm very impatient sometimes, I didn't use a stabilizer for the back (didn't have any yet). Also it seems I suck at transferring patterns.
Instead of using six strands of the floss I did just four because I could use a smaller needle that way which went through the fabric a lot easier and without stretching it even more.

The hardest one was this one because it was so close to the seam. Yes, there was a hole there, I wouldn't have chosen that spot by myself because I knew this would not be a pretty star. I was right.

For one of them I used two colors because one color was wrapped around the paper of the other one and I thought why not. There are no rules.

I also added two to three extra stitches over the centers to attach the top threads. Washing, remember? I did the first wash without net and was positively surprised to see the stars didn't get destroyed right away, not even the biggest one.

Now that I have some stabilizer, I hope the stars will be more regular because I'm sure I will have to add more over time. Also the empty left hand side definitely needs another one right away.
Sorry I didn't manage a better picture, but with the wide skirt and with the stars being so far apart I couldn't do any better than throw the dress over a door and try to get them all in the picture.

I will share the other dresses piece by piece, but so far I have only started one which will take a bit longer and I don't have ideas for the other ones yet.
Hopefully, the cats won't try to assist me by making more holes and turning this into a Sisyphus task!