The Week That Was

This week we have cut and made and said goodbye to a few dresses for various exciting occasions. The leopard print is my favourite of the week complete with it's bright flashy underskirt. I really can't wait to share the story of this dress!

 The underskirt to go with, full of ruffles!

The Liberty Claire-Aude Tana Lawn fabric we are making the prettiest bridesmaids dresses from. You should see what's going with them below in the form of glitter!

The delicate vintage lace of a secret dress that has the ultimate twirl factor of a dress we have ever made.

A sample bow tie for a wedding full of bow ties. Every guest has been asked to wear one and I love this idea!

Anna jet-setted over to Barcelona for a beautiful Art Nouveau garden wedding of friends. Check out her new blue dress made in a vintage scarf print.

 And ........ THE GLITTER. It's coming very soon and boy is it going to be special. Sorry it's not a dress!

That was the week that was. I also went for a great Sunday walk in Langport Somerset and I have quite an exciting pink bundle arriving soon that is the best treat ever. Watch this space, next week is going to be soooo exciting!

Surf Surfari Dress Sketch

So this week we WILL make this dress from the totally awesome neon surf print found at the very back of a little haberdashery near by.

The fabric: is a great saturated print filled cotton making it crisp and light

The print: screen printed 90s graphics and swirls in purple, pink and neon yellow.

The dress: a two piece with sweetheart fitted bodice top and a fabulously full skirt with a fitted waist as always.

Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Readers: what would you do with this fabric, what would you like? And have you found any surprisingly cool stuff in the back of your local shop?

New Customer Pics - Prom dress on the beach

The stunning and totally romantic beach wedding of Allie and Nicholas in New Zealand. This photo is just so gorgeous!
Just a sneak peek, hopefully there will be more to come soon!

Our soft tulle prom dress works perfectly dressed down with bare feet making it effortlessly beach beautiful instead of prim debutant. I love the big daisy bouquet too. Allie has done some excellent styling here!

Readers: any beach wedding plans, ideas or experiences to share?

Moodboard - Surf Safari

This weeks board and dress is 'Surf Safari'. Eighties and nineties Californian neon with bright prints, perms, tropical pink lipstick and cut off vests. I love the Venice beach body builders, the original Fat Willy's logo and the Quicksilver girls in thier high leg swim suits.

There is one incredible surf safari print coming up that we're using for the dress, something to brighten up Summer!

The Week That Was ...

We'll be sharing each week in pictures as 'The Week that Was' so you can catch a glimpse of what we're up to. Here is last week.

Gorgeous green floral Tanya Whelan cotton for cutting.

A very special yellow dress order.

It was sunny here for a while last week.

A baby pink underskirt for a bride who will now be wed!

The 'Fat Willy's' surf vest Wing bought me from his trip to Falmouth. I love this neon logo so much and will be wearing this to death. (wish they had a more enticing website though!) 

The amazing box of trinkets sent to me as a thank you from What Katy Did next. The green glitter peg magnets are the perfect addition to the studio.

Anna and Laura outside the Goldbrick House tweet up hosted by the Little Wedding Helper last week. It was a fabulous evening of meeting some lovely people.

Friday Friends - Sneak Peek and Sharing

 Photography by Sally T Photography

This is a mini Friday Friends that I promise will be covered in way more depth soon. 

A Beautifully styled by designer and super talented organised lady Katy Howieson of What Katy Did Next. 

Katy got together some wonderful suppliers to take part in a styled shoot to promote Thimble and Bobbin home wares and along with photographer Sally Thurrell created a gorgeous world of homely loveliness. 

I'm incredibly flattered our dresses get to grace such stunning girls and be surrounded by so many pretty things, in a warm country cottage.

The shoot was featured on Love My Dress recently and we will be going into more depth about all the amazing people involved soon. And of course sharing pics of our dresses!

Here is a link list to some gorgeous stuff to keep you going ................................................

Photography: Sally T Photography
Head wear: What Katy Did Next
Home wares (cushions, hearts, prints and other textiles): Thimble & Bobbin 

They have a shop here too 

Make Up: Make Up By Jo    

Hair: Vintage Tinsel
            Art: Alexandra Garrity Art           

Tea cups and saucers: Tea With Ruby
Venue: Bousdale Farm
Models: Beth Dooley & Pippa Welch
Aprons: Pinnikity

RockN'Roll Bride Feature ........

Our new bridal collection and styled shoots are on RockN'Roll Bride today with Laura Michelle Photography and What Katy Did Next. Go check it out, Huge Thank you for everyone involved!!!!

The Lookbook - Bridal 2012 'Seven Brides' collection

 

Sophia - red rose printed silk full length halter gown

Lily - rose printed pale bronze tea length gown

Penelope - ivory crepe rhinestone dotted wiggle dress

Carla - pale blue silk pleated dress with tulle underskirts

Judy - sheer polkadot tulle illusion calf length dress

Louisa - soft ivory tulle ballerina skirt dress with beaded sleeves and rhinestone polka dots

Claudia - full length wedding gown in champagne tulle with a fine bead and sequin trim.

 

At long last here's our 2012 bridal collection look-book beautifully shot by photographer Laura Michelle. The 'seven brides' collection is available made to order from our online boutique, some of the dresses require consultations (either online or at the studio) to discuss fabrics, beading options and designs and others you can simply click and order.

For the next seven weeks I will share more details about each dress, the photo shoots and the wonderful people we worked with.

You can click on each image to take you to the boutique for more info.

Photographer : Laura Michelle Photography

Accessories : What Katy Did Next (see more beautiful pieces in the shoots coming later)

Models: Kimberley Louise Hill and Natalie Power

 

Sunday Night Reads - On Writing by Stephen King

On Writing, a memoir of a craft by Stephen King. Published 2001

Ok, I know it's Monday morning now. I finished reading this book late last night and needed to sleep on what I was going to say.

The book is not about fashion, sewing or how to be a designer but this book has been inspiring. You can easily change the title to 'On Designing' or 'On Craftsmanship'.

We all know Stephen King is a super successful writer, this is the first book I have read of his but I have watched enough films adapted from his books to know he's an amazing story teller.

This book goes through a mini autobiography, relevant to starting out in your particular craft and then covers working practices that help you along the way. I was handed this book by Wing to improve my writing the blog (I really struggle with writing and am the slowest reader I know) and On Writing has helped.

My favourite parts of the book are lessons on ......

• Rejection, Stephen King had a huge pile of rejection letters that he kept above his desk to spur him on.
  
• Closing the studio door and keeping yourself in a bubble until the first draft is complete.
  
• Taking criticism, taking walks (being careful to avoid swerving blue trucks) watching movies and just loving the type of creative work you do to death.
  
• Setting goals to achieve each day. And then stepping away to gain a little perspective.
  

It's incredibly reassuring to know that someone this successful really struggled, worked his arse off, nearly died a few times, but kept at it. And all that motivates him is wanting to write.

I have a long way to go with my writing, I still use unecessary words. But it is another softly worn paperback that I will keep returning too. I have promised myself to read more and wear more and more dresses.

You can buy the book here

Readers, do you have any books on one subject that have helped you in another? Or any books to share that have really motivated you?

 

A Day At The Studio ....

The day starts with going through emails, ordering fabrics and basically being glued to this desk for a couple of hours. As you can see my desk (a lovely solid oak, brass handled beast with a green leather top salvaged from a vets skip) is rather covered in stuff, sketchbooks, to do lists, paints, calculators, lollipop wrappers etc. This part of the studio is not tidy.

Then the post arrives with fabric orders, zips, trimmings and everything we need to make dresses with. We have quite a few gentlemen callers at the studio door with packages for us. (sorry!)

 Sometimes our lovely customers hand deliver the fabric they have personally selected in lovely wrappings.

Today we needed to source lace for a consultation later this week so Anna and Me selected options that would work for the design and ordered a few more laces.

Eventually it's time to start work on the actual dresses, laying out and cutting the silk. These colours are part of the prettiest bridesmaids collection for a wedding this year, I can't wait to share it.

 Anna sews the bodices of the dresses, super carefully .................... whilst we discuss each stage, seam finish and how it fits.

Dresses we are working on get added to rail, the rail is nearly full at the moment.

And finished dresses get packed in their white boxes ready for shipping to the other side of the world. Today dresses are off the the US and Australia.

So there is our day in the studio, I'm still here typing away and working on sketches and lists for tomorrow. We will share more days with you from time to time xxx

Little Easter Blue Bird Dress

Anna's Easter Kids Dress is totally adorable!  I love the super cute bluebirds in the centre and the polka dot trim. You can just imagine little girls running around this Summer in this dress complete with pigtails tied with matching bows. I think I would have used the pockets for Barbie shoes, feathers and frogs.

If you would like to learn how to make this gorgeous little dress yourself (and are based in the South West) Anna will be running a workshop at Millie Moon in Frome on Friday 22nd June. Click here for more details and to book. 

Anna is also teaching a fifties style skirt workshop like this one above on the Thursday 5th July again at Millie Moon in Frome.

This little dress is going to Millie Moon so won't be appearing in the shop yet but I'm sure Anna would make one on request for a little girl in need of a dress. In the meantime take a look at Anna's other children's dresses in the shop here.  xxx

Sunday night reads - from A to Biba

 

From A to Biba - the autobiography of Barbara Hulanicki. Published by V&A and available to buy here

Barbara Hulanicki founded Biba, the most exciting shopping experience of the late 1960s through to the 70s and probably of all time. This book is a rollercoaster tale of the rise and sad fall of Biba that will have you inspired to imagine endless possibilities.

Anna first introduced me to Biba whilst we were at Uni, I never liked Sixties design (something I still class as evil most of the time) and wasn't immediately drawn to this subject. She then showed me an illustrated Biba book that had just been published. Seeing the parchment pages and scribbled drawings of 'In Biba' I eventually got it. Biba is exciting and so is the whole story.

Branding, business and fearless creativity are what it's all about. Fashion was the starting point that led onto a whole department store of the Biba brand, Biba baked beans, Biba make up, Biba rock star gigs, Biba flamingos!

I'm amazed that there is so little of Biba left now, I have found the odd dress but they aren't really the exciting part. My most treasured item is an original mail order catalogue. I will share this at another date, Biba can fill pages and pages of blog posts!

Just read the book. Xxx

Friday Friends - Laura Michelle, 'Power' photographer!

Laura Michelle Photography

Laura Michelle Photography

My Friday Friend this week is Laura Power of Laura Michelle Photography. I have been waiting to write this for such a long time, and at last I can share this amazing lady.
Laura first came to me for bridesmaids dresses after a vintage wedding fair, I was in the changing rooms at the time and Anna pointed at her across the room saying this girl just came over and wanted a dress. Laura was at another wedding dress stand and didn't come back, so I assumed she was the one that got away!

Thankfully she emailed me a few weeks later and came to visit the studio where we chatted bridesmaids dress and she told me she was a photographer. I thought nothing of it until I looked her up and fell head over heels in love with her blog and photography skills.

This is just a selection of my favourites, she is able to make beautiful the most mundane things and she was the only option when it came to shoot the bridal collection. I'm a complete control freak and we usually do all the photography ourselves but Laura is one of those people you can totally trust and is great to be around all day. She's also one of those uber talented people who doesn't have any idea quite how talented she is.

Here are a few other things about this wonderful photographer:

- Laura has seven (yes, 7 like a doctor) years of photography study behind her, a degree, two years of black and white study and two years of colour study

- She's super passionate about photography

- She has so many different cameras, lomo cameras, Polaroids, all sorts of gadgets to make amazing images with.

- I loved that she said that it doesn't matter how expensive your camera is, it's the skill in using it. The two photographs below were taken on a cheap digital point and shoot.

- She's a very lovely person that you would want at your wedding, not bolshy, just lovely.

- Laura will capture the most amazing moments when your not looking and get images of your family that perfectly represent their personalities. At the same time she is brilliant at directing models/brides to look your very best.

- She's very well traveled, has a black lab named Alfie and is getting married herself this year too! 

- Here are the photos Laura took at her first bridesmaids consultation at the studio.
- Here are the behind the scenes images of the bridal shoot! 

This image Laura took whilst in San Francisco of a couple at sunset, this is how great she is at capturing split second moments, even with a crappy camera.

The ceiling in the Bellagio Lobby, Vegas

My favorite image of the bridal shoot taken on the beach.

I know, once again I must seem like I'm totally over the top about this lady but she is wow factor, up and coming and soon to be up with the very best. I was blown away when I saw the shots from our bridal collection, the above image is exactly what I dreamt of and there was no way I could have taken this image myself.

NOTE: Now I've seen some terrible wedding photos, the type you want to hide they are so bad, taken by people who call themselves professional photographers.. And that's the one thing from your wedding that you keep and look at again and again. The photographer is even more important than the dress!

We all need to value genuinely talented photographers like Laura far more, it's certainly not just pushing a button on an expensive camera.

Sketches - Bridal 2012

Here are the watercolour and ink sketches from the forthcoming bridal collection along with a little intro as to what you can expect.

Title: The Seven Brides

The basic brief: Seven dresses for seven individuals. Each dress you can wear, dance in and still feel independent in whilst being showstopping. Nothing too serious, nothing too white and nothing too 'bridal'.

The inspirations: Once again dresses that can be worn on the red carpet or down the aisle and old Hollywood film star nuptials. It's a little more low key in silhouette but with added glitz and glamour. Each dress has a style and character of it's own which I will share in detail over the coming weeks, seven dresses for seven brides.

The fabrics: lots of silk taffeta, tulle, rhinestones, beading and texture to make dramatic silhouettes.

The colours: I tried really hard not to use white, but then fell in love with a white polka dot tulle, the colour pallet is blues, champagne, silvers with a big splash of dramatic colour.

So watch this space over the next two weeks, I just had a disc full or gorgeous images of the dress from Laura Michelle this morning. I can't wait to share them!