People Ask Me Things: Trims and Stoning

My email this week included this note from the UK, regarding Trimming and Stoning! Let's take a look:

Dear... Um... Stitch's Mum:

In the near future I am going to get some new skating trousers. The plan is:
- Sophie buys pattern.
- Sophie buys material.
- Sophie drives 100 miles.
- Sophie's mum makes trousers.
- Sophie hops, skips, jumps 100 miles home (while driving?)
- Sophie attempts to put some sort of decoration on trousers.

My question is: What would WWWMSLD? I know I can glue gems on but that will likely end in me sticking my fingers together/sticking fingers to gems/sticking fingers to face/etc.

I was wondering if you have an reccomendations to sew-on tye things as I can hand sew? (You should see me with a sewing machine... Who needs straight stitch when you can be... artistic about it? Anything more than 1 stitch per second is way too fast.)

I know people use these types of things but I'm thinking they'll be floppy and not lie more-or-less flat?

Oh, and I tried your tutorial think on how to sew little beads! I used quite-flexible tiger tail (something like that) wire on a hankie for my nan for Christmas! I don't think she'll ever use it to blow her nose on asn she may end up snorting beads... Imagine explaining that to the doctor!

Many thanks-
Confused in the UK

Well, Confused in the UK, your question is actually a bunch of questions rolled into one!

Let me start off by saying that when I visited the UK, I had lunch at a Buttery. As I hail from the American South where Butter is a staple, it was a bit of a disappointment. (Just kidding, I loved the sandwich.)

What I'm reading here is a question on Trims, a question on Applique, and a question on Stoning. How do we buy these things, and what do we do with them once we have them?

What I propose to do is that we break this down into a series of posts on how to trim and accent skatewear. A common practice is to buy commercially available dresses and bedeck them ourselves, so a tutorial would be helpful here.

Let's plan a trip to the Trimmings section of the Fabric Shop first, then learn how to sew on or glue those on. (I've done it both ways.)
Then we'll work with some Appliques. Those can be a lot of fun and a great shortcut.
Lastly, we'll work with Crystals and Stones.

So, Readers; If you have any questions, advice, or stories about your experiences with these Decorative Thingamabobbers, send in your emails now! They will be featured in upcoming posts to come to the aide of your Fellow Skate Moms! Next week we will be educational!

Thanks for the posting ideas, Confused!

PS:

You must have a very nice Mum to sew a pair of pants for you, as when I asked my own sewing mom to do the same for me, she sent me a very, um, polite email back. She sewed two pair of pants and then she was done with skatewear. I don't blame her a bit.