Beautiful satin wedding gown!

I've been quite shamefully lapse in blogging about my creations for a little while now but I have been rather busy of late! One of my main projects that was occupying a lot of my attention up until a month ago was a wedding gown commission that came with matching cravats, flower-girl's dress and tiara. It was lovely making something so special and it's been quite hard keeping it all under wraps but she got married yesterday so I can finally share some pics of my work with you! As it's likely to be quite picture heavy I'll put the gown itself in this post and then all the other bits in one to follow tomorrow.

The gown: an a-line dress with a structured, boned bodice and chapel train in a beautiful red duchess satin, covered in over 2000 beads and Swarovski crystals (all individually applied) with tiny covered buttons running down the back. While the front was beautiful it was the back where the real 'Wow' was, with over 1500 of the beads/crystals on the train itself and a diamond cut-out detail from the nape of her neck to the waist.

From the front:

Detail of the skirt beading:

More skirt beading:

The back cut-out and chiffon section (unfortunately the dress was slightly to small for my mannequin to I had to photograph this part on the hanger): 

The train:

The bride was absolutely thrilled with it, which is the most important thing, hopefully everyone else on the day loved it too!

Prom dress season...the first one done

I know I've not blogged for a while, but April's been a bit of a strange month. I've been mad busy, with lots of things on the go at once, but I've not actually got to the end of any projects and had a finished object to show off (and the one I have, I haven't photographed yet).

But today that changed as I finished the first of two prom dresses that I've been working on. This one is made in red cotton jersey, which is a fabric which gives a lovely drape and fit to a dress (jersey seems to be a trend in prom / evening style dresses this year):

The asymmetrical strap is positioned so as to serve the purpose of holding the dress up properly as well as looking good. The 4 flowers each have 3 Swarovski crsytal beads in the centre, and are all detachable so that they can be repositioned to suit the wearer's fancy on the day.

This has been a lovely dress to work on, and it was really satisfying this afternoon to sit down to make the flowers and be able to take the final pictures!