Rachel Lamb Bridal Design

  No.4     No.1  No.2   No.3 Well I've been making some bridal accessories. What with making wedding gowns and the like, there can often be fabrics and bits of trims left over which causes me angst as I'm not always too sure what to do with them. I know I want to make something, but what exactly? This is often a dilemma for me. Probably because the majority of pieces are ivory. My brief for this type of thing is that it has to be reasonably quick to make, as this means reasonable price to purchase, and that I'll want to keep making them alongside the work intensive wedding dress side of things. Anyway, these fit my creative comfort zone. I hope you like them. They aren't priced yet, but will be soon, and these and others like them will be for sale shortly. More details on that in a while. In the meantime, if you do like them and want to know the price, just let me know. These are modelled by my chum Zoe who k...

As the title says, Emily sample dress is now finished. It's actually a two piece outfit - the lace top can be removed and the belt worn with the strapless dress underneath. I was all set to continue photographing the under-dress when the battery went on my camera, so those pics will have to wait for a bit. I decided to lightly bead the neckline of the strapless dress underneath - last week I wasn't sure. I hope you can just about see the beading on the dress through the lace. The dress is made from ivory silk Dupion, which is a pure silk and reasonably crisp, but it could be made in a variety of fabrics for a shinier, smoother or floppier look if you prefer. A different shade to the under-dress could perhaps also work with the ivory lace too. This dress is for my Collection. Which means it's there for you to try on and order as a made to measure design or to use as a starting point for a Bespoke design of your own. As with all my designs, you can ...

The way I work often involves lots of hand sewing, and this bespoke wedding dress was no exception. I listened to the whole of The Private Patient by P.D. James while working on attaching the lace motifs to this dress this week - that's a reasonably long story. It was quite satisfying because both the sewing and the story finished within minutes of each other! It looks lovely and is virtually finished for the final fitting next week. I'll be able to show and tell more at a later date. :-)

Purple in the garden and in the work studio this week. I've just finished the purple dress and will be able to show more images after the wedding. Really enjoying the sunshine and flowers, and the buzz of bees at last. I'm particularly pleased that the Aquilegias - Black Barlow (middle pic) have flowered well this year. I love dark purple blooms. :-)

  Here's lovely Poppy wearing her wedding dress. Poppy really is a country girl at heart - wellies, dogs, mud (she won't mind me telling you that) and an easy and comfortable life. She wanted a dress that reflected that, and that she would feel easy and comfortable wearing. So soft, feminine, no boning and a small train that can easily be hitched up later on. Poppy's dress is a gentle A-line shape with a scoop neck and loose sleeves. It's made from a heavy silk crepe with a soft lace overlay and soft satin hand-tied sash. I added some small pearls around the neckline and on the sleeves to give a small and gentle gleam. No fuss.

Remember this dress I showed a picture of at the toile stage? Well it's slowly progressing! Above was the toile (prototype) made from calico. Yes, I pinned all those pieces on something that it's then necessary to take apart again. Below is a picture of the real silk dress in progress. Today I started beading those squares onto the main body of the dress. Phew! I really enjoy this sort of day, working on something where I'm sitting still and doing a repetitive task like this can be very relaxing and leaves my mind free to wander. But I think the idea of doing this sort of work does weird things to my brain: First thing in the morning, I optimistically think such things as 'Yes, I'm sure I'll have half the dress done by sunset'. The sun is not yet set, but it is fading, and I'm about 1ft up from the hem at the back... and I'm not hanging about! It's important that I get the timings right, as this is a sample dress and needs to be...

Here's Dawn. She knew what she wanted and that was a red wedding dress, with some pleats and beading on it! So I set to and made it for her :) It was good to make Dawn's dress for her because apart from the pleasure of making it, it was nice to have a change of colour in my studio. Ivory is always lovely for wedding dresses, but this was a gorgeous rich red, which made a change for me and made Dawn happy! Dawn married her chap on a summer day in Ely (you can see the Cathedral in one of the images above) on one of the days when it wasn't raining, and the vibrant green of the well rained-on grass contrasts really well with her dress colour, I think. The pictures were taken by photographer John Wolfe, who very kindly sent these to me. You can visit his site here .

Here is Abi on her wedding day at Madingley Hall in Cambridge, the grounds of which are much bigger and more formal than I realised (lots of pleasing clipped, topiary shrubs etc if you like that sort of thing - I do). Abi is wearing a strapless version of one of my collection dresses (called Tallulah), which is made from ivory silk taffeta. For Abi I made the beading denser than the sample dress and the actual beaded area is bigger too, so although she chose an existing design, it was adapted to suit her. The above shot shows the beading during manufacture. This dress was the perfect choice for Abi because the pleating at the waist showed off her figure really well. But what is this I see? Shock, horror! First she's running - which just shows how easy to wear my dresses are...  and those shoes don't seem to match her dress! ;) Aren't they fab? I'm a great fan of brides wearing different coloured shoes and accessories. (I once had a...

 This is the story of how an existing dress design from my collection can be personalised to suit individual tastes. Meet the bride (I'll call her S) - and her fabulous red shoes! They really were ruby slippers just like Dorothy's but about twice as high! S came to me earlier in the year looking for something a bit different for her wedding. Initially it seemed that I might be making something completely bespoke for her, until she tried on this from the collection: I call it ZigZag because of the panels and its also how my brain feels when I'm making the pattern for it! Anyway, the dress is asymmetric in places, namely the panels themselves and the hip seam, and although she liked the panels themselves, S preferred a more symmetrical look. No problem say I, and after a few fittings and lots of pen marks and pins (on the toile of course), managed to come up with an asymmetric-symmetrical bodice! Aaah...sweet! Can you see in the pic above how her hip seam i...

This is the dress that I was beading in my last post. I've named it Amica. All my dresses are named because its easier to identify them (and in my opinion, more fun than numbers). Some are easy to name and at other times I find myself consulting baby names books, but that's another post... Originally this was going to be a dress with cap sleeves, but as I was making the calico toile (see below), I couldn't decide. This is a type of fishtail dress and is available to order as is, or with variations. Here's a close up of the beading I showed you last week: Amica is made from ivory Thai silk, which is nice and smooth and has more of a matt look than many other silks. I wanted this dress to look elegant and simple. Eventually I compromised with the sleeves and made this sample dress with detachable sleeves so it can be ordered with or without and you can actually see how that might look. I think it would also look good as a strapless dress too.   With and wi...