A Short Break...

Hi,

I've got a hectic couple of months ahead, so I'm just posting to let anyone reading know that I won't be posting any designs on either of my blogs for the next 2 months. I'm leaving all my previous blog posts up, so feel free to look through the designs I have already posted. I'm looking forward to having a couple of months break, to give me time to come up with some new ideas ready for November. In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, please also look at my  special occasion-wear designs on my other blog www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk, and I will be back here on Friday 4th of November with new designs for the winter.

Thanks,

Bronzedale Designs.

Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Carriage' Top

Inspired by a picture of a Victorian carriage, this could be worn as either a long top or a short dress. It is made up of black and white panels, fitted together to form the shape of the carriage when the wearer's arms are down by their sides. The top has wide, three quarter-length sleeves, and the wheel shapes are appliqued onto them. White ribbon is used to outline some of the panels, such as the rectangles that make up the carriage windows, and around the edge of the neckline and the sleeves. The top reaches to the upper thigh.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by History' project. For more designs check back here on the 1st of November or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Top Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Nothing Gold Can Stay' Lingerie

This design is inspired by the poem 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' by Robert Frost, which I came across after hearing the beautiful song Stay Gold by First Aid Kit. It is a design I've had on my to do list for quite a while, so I was pleased to be able to get it done.

The bra and briefs are both pale green. The briefs are edged with gold, and the bra straps are also gold. Both the bra and the briefs feature leaves and tendrils as decoration. These could either be embroidered or printed on.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Literature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Lingerie Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Rossetti' Trousers

I've had the picture that I've used for this, sat in my OneNote notebook for a while now, not knowing what I wanted to use it for. The picture is an ink drawing that I found on the Tate Gallery's website. It is by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and is titled Taurello's First Sight of Fortune.

The picture has five subjects (and the dog) but for this pair of trousers I have cut out three of the subjects, partly because they wouldn't have fit on the trousers and partly because that would have been a lot more sketching. So, the trousers only feature Taurello and the lady removing her glove. I have done my best to copy their faces accurately, but as I am not Rossetti, the faces are far from a perfect replica. The landscape behind is also not copied very faithfully, and is more or less completely invented in places to fill out the space.

For the picture I've drawn on the trousers I used Microsoft's FreshPaint programme because it gave more of a hand drawn feel than Serif Drawplus, the programme I normally use.

The trousers themselves are wide-legged and made of a parchment coloured linen. The image would be printed on them. The trousers would fasten by a zip at the side. The belt panel of the trousers has a bow and arrow motif embroidered on it, taken from the bow and arrow in the original picture.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Trousers Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Wren' Dress

This is a design that has taken me quite a while to perfect. I knew I wanted to use a wren motif on it, but found it really difficult to draw something that looked nice and suited the dress style I wanted to use. In the end I came up with this repeated motif pattern going down each of the side panels of the dress. There is also embroidery around the sleeves, neckline and waist of the dress. All of the embroidery is in white. The dress has short sleeves and a knee-length skirt.

Embroidery on the dress

Wren motif used on the dress

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Nature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Dress Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Mary II Painting' Pyjamas

I've based this design on a dress from a painting of Mary II. The painting that I based this on is actually a copy of one by Sir Peter Lely. In the original she is wearing an reddish-orange dress, but in the copy I based this on, her dress is blue.

Detail of the pyjama top

These pyjamas take the colours of the dress from the painting. They have slit sleeves with another cream sleeve underneath. The slit is then joined by a small piece of ribbon with a teardrop shape hanging from it. The slit sleeves were inspired by the sleeves on Mary II's dress. The pyjamas also have embroidery round the neckline which mimics the shapes of Mary II's pearl beads in the painting.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by History' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Pyjamas Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'The Sunne in Splendour' Tunic

I have recently read The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman for the first time, and absolutely loved it. So I decided to use that for my Design Inspired by Literature this week.

This design uses Edward IV's sunne in splendour badge as a motif on the embroidered front panel. The panel uses the motif three times, one on each shoulder and one in the centre of the tunic. This embroidered panel then attaches to a brown tie-belt, which ties at the back of the tunic. The tunic is sleeveless, but in this drawing it is shown worn over a plain cream shirt. The tunic's armholes are edged with the same brown colour as the belt. The rest of the tunic is left plain to draw attention to the embroidered panel.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Literature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Tunic Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Calligraphy' Swimwear

I wasn't sure what to call this - I felt a bikini implied something slightly more skimpy than this, but I didn't think it was a tankini either. In the end I just decided on swimwear. It is inspired by a piece of calligraphy by a calligrapher called Renate Fuhrmann which was done using wood tar on a black background. The letters look a sort of golden colour against it. The words were in German, but translate as something like 'I will be who I am.' I used some of the letters from the German words for this design. The top half uses half of an 'I' and a 'C' and the bottom half uses a 'W' The design is intended to be made out of a lightweight wetsuit neoprene, with the letters appliqued on. The top half would fasten with a zip at the back.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Swimsuit Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Wheat' Shorts

I realised that I'd never posted a design for a pair of shorts on this blog, so I decided to design these shorts, after having found a picture of wheat from the internet.

These shorts are intended to be made out of a light blue cotton, with the wheat motifs embroidered across the legs of the shorts. Decorative lines of stitches in the wheat colour and in a darker blue are used around the pockets, and around the edges of the blue material. The shorts have a brown elasticated waistband (the two buttons on the front are only decorative) and matching brown cuffs.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Nature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Shorts Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'1950s Car' Raincoat

Before I write this post, I must confess to knowing absolutely nothing about cars of any sort. But I recently saw a photograph of a place I knew as it was in 1950, and the cars looked different enough to really stand out to me.

This design took quite a long time as it was difficult to create the right reflection on the plastic of the raincoat. The raincoat is flared, has a wide collar and slim, straight sleeves. It has white edging around the corners of the coat, an off-white belt and white button feature on the shoulders. The raincoat is knee-length and would fasten with snaps.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by History' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Raincoat Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Holes' Top

This design is inspired by the book Holes by Louis Sachar. It's a very clever book, and is a really enjoyable read, which is quite surprising when most of the book is about digging holes.

Because of this, I've used a spade motif across one side of the top. The top is intended to be fastened where the green panel joins the orange and blue panels. Snaps would be used under each of the spade shapes to fasten the top. The other part of the top is split into an orange panel, and a blue panel, with a lizard appliqued in yellow, imitating the book's cover. The edges of the top, around the neck, arms and hem are bound in the same colour yellow as the lizard and the spades.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Literature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Top Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Devon Moths' Waistcoat

I can't make up my mind about this design, I'm not sure whether I like it or not. I've walked away from the computer and come back to it a few times to try and see if I can decide, but I still can't, so in the end I decided to post it anyway, because I haven't got another design that I can post instead this week.

The inspiration behind it is from a leaflet I got a little while back for 'Devon Moths.' Small, very detailed sculptures of moths, made from fallen trees. They were such an unusual idea that they really caught my eye and so I decided to do a design based around them.

This design uses the colours of one of the moths and also loosely uses the moth's shape in the shapes of the coloured areas on the waistcoat. The waistcoat has a black collar and is fastened with a row of black covered buttons. There is embroidery in a rust colour, following the shapes of the orange areas.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Waistcoat Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Seashell' Summer Dress

Perhaps a slightly melodramatic design, but I've been wanting to design a dress that uses a seashell shape for a while now, and as it's summer, it seemed appropriate.

The dress itself is fairly plain, there are very subtle colour changes on the seashell ruffle, but there is no embellishment and the ruffles are the only decorative element. There is one ruffle on the front making the seashell shape, which then forms the skirt. This joins with an identical ruffle on the back. The dress would fasten at the side using an invisible zip.

The whole dress is intended to be made out of cotton and there would be a cotton underskirt, as to create the seashell shape, the skirt edges come up very high. The underskirt would reach to a few inches above the lowest point of the dress.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Nature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Dress Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Roman Wing' Top

This post is late because I've only just finished the design. I've been procrastinating doing it all week, because I didn't have a clue what I was going to do. I'd run out of ideas and couldn't find anything to base my design on. After quite a while of looking for ideas I ended up on a BBC news article published yesterday about a piece from a roman statue that was found in Gloucester. The wing piece is thought to be from a statue to Victoria, the Roman Goddess of victory.

This design uses the wing shape as decoration on the top. The wing shapes are embroidered onto the top, the shapes are backed with a slightly heavier fabric so that they retain their shapes. The fabric of the top is loosely gathered at the edge of the wing shapes and also at the cuffs. The cuffs are made in the same way as the wing shapes are, and are embroidered in the same colour. A small button would be used on each of the cuffs so that they can be loosened. The top fastens by two buttons at the back of the top, because the way that the wing shapes overlap would make it impractical to fasten at the front.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by History' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Top Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'The Secret Countess' Dressing Gown

(Sorry that this blog post is being posted two days late, it's been sunny so anything that involves staying indoors has been shifted to the end of my to do list.)

I've been reading The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson recently, though rereading might be more accurate, as I have read it quite a few times before. To say that this design is inspired by the book would be stretching the truth a little bit, it's actually only really inspired by the book cover, which on my version of the book, has a butterfly design in gold around the edges of the front cover.

I've used this butterfly design on this dressing gown, the butterfly motif has been repeated across the dressing gown at different angles and sizes and in different shades of gold. The butterfly motif is intended to be printed on the dressing gown fabric.

The rest of the dressing gown is fairly simple. It has a plain gold collar and tie and is mid-calf length. There is a loose ruffling on either side of the dressing gown, but other than that the shape and style of the dressing gown is simple, relying on the butterfly pattern for its' decoration.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Literature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special occasion wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Dressing Gown Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Stained Glass' Swimsuit

After several disastrous attempts to design a bra inspired by stained glass I gave up and tried a swimsuit instead, and for some unknown reason that idea seemed to work when the bra so clearly hadn't. I have no idea why, but the bra I tried to design several times really did look awful. I have the sketches to prove it.

Anyway, here is the more successful swimsuit. The style is taken from a lovely 1930s swimsuit that I saw in a book a couple of years ago, but that one was yellow. This design has the top and bottom connected by a brown plastic ring which matches the edging on the swimming costume. The bottom half of the swimming costume is a little less revealing than the average modern day swimming costume, which, I personally think is quite nice.

The design is inspired by stained glass, and the piece that I was using as inspiration was pretty much impossible to do justice to. It is a triptych designed by Joaquim Mir called El Gorg Blau, and it is unbelievably stunning, with glass almost every colour of the rainbow. As such I've just taken some of the colours and shapes and used them in this design with deep brown lines outlining each shape in the way that stained glass is outlined. This is the result.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special occasion wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Swimsuit Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Ripples' Suit

I designed this only a few days ago. There'd been a lot of rain and I ended up in the middle of a very large puddle getting extremely wet, which was actually surprisingly good fun (though I was with my sister, who is very good at making just about anything fun.) Which is how I ended up choosing to design this suit based on ripples.

Detail of embroidery on the collar

The suit is a blue grey colour. The suit jacket has a wide collar, in a deeper colour, embroidered in ripple patterns with creamy-white thread. The jacket reaches to just below the hips and the edges of the jacket are embroidered with ripple patterns. The sleeves have several lines of stitching down them for decoration.

Detail of embroidery on the suit jacket

The skirt is a slightly flared A-line shape and reaches to the knees. It is the same blue grey as the main part of the jacket, and has darker embroidered lines down it. It has the same ripple design as the jacket embroidered along the hem.

Detail of embroidery on the skirt

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Nature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special occasion wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Suit Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Elizabeth I Coronation' Jacket

This jacket is based on the coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. It uses a pattern similar to the one used on the bodice of Elizabeth's dress, it also copies the fitted shape of the bodice (though it hasn't been taken to the extremes that the Tudors took it.) Interestingly, the dress that Elizabeth wore in her coronation portrait was also the dress that Mary I had worn for her coronation.

Detail of the pattern on the jacket

This jacket is intended to be made of brocade of a golden brown colour with the pattern picked out in a slightly duller brown colour. The jacket is very fitted, with close-fitting long sleeves. The collar is ruffled and is made out of a lighter satiny material in a similar colour to the rest of the jacket. The same material is used to make a ruffle that goes around the hem of the jacket. The jacket uses an invisible zip for a subtle fastening.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by History' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special occasion wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Jacket Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'North Child' Dress

This design is based on the book North Child by Edith Pattou. It's based on a Norwegian fairy tale called East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which has slight resemblances to Beauty and the Beast. On one of the first pages of the book there is an image of a compass rose (the book involves compasses quite a lot.) The image looked really striking on the opening pages though, so I decided to use it for this design.

Detail of compass rose decoration

This design uses a wide blue collar-like neckline. The dress is plain white except for the compass rose design which is printed onto the dress, to one side. The design continues round to the back, though part of the design would be cut out by the armhole. The dress has a blue hem to match the colour of the compass rose design and the collar.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Literature' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special occasion wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Dress Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Hare Sculpture' Jumper

Following on slightly from last week and the theme of willow, the inspiration behind this jumper was a sculpture of a hare made from willow and wire by the artist Julieann Worrall Hood. The sculpture that this design is taken from is one of twelve willow hare sculptures, and the picture of them all together looks really amazing.

This jumper uses the leaping hare motif on the front. The hare on the front would be made out of wool, placed so as to make the shape of the hare and then zig-zag stitched over top of to keep it in place. Alternately, a simpler approach to creating it would be to embroider the hare on.

Detail of the hare

The rest of the jumper is a relatively simple. The jumper is navy to contrast with the rust colour of the hare. Ribbing is used around neckline and the hem. The cuffs are quite long and are also ribbed.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs inspired by Art' project. For more designs, check back here next week or visit my other blog, Bronzedale Bridal Designs at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Jumper Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Willow' Skirt

I realised recently that I'd never posted a design for a skirt, so here is a design I created last week for a skirt inspired by willow leaves. As it's spring and the leaves are all beginning to appear on the trees they seemed a good subject for a design, and I particularly like willow trees.

Detail of skirt embroidery

The skirt has a slight A-line shape, reaches to a little below the knee and is intended to be made of a fairly lightweight suede material. It has an embroidered belt panel and would fasten at the side of the skirt with a zip, though alternately it could use an elasticated panel at the back for a simpler fastening, as skirt zips can often catch in the lining and get stuck. The skirt is embroidered with downward facing willow leaves to create the shapes of hanging willow branches. The embroidery follows the loose gathers in the skirt.

 I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs inspired by Nature' project. For more designs, check back here next week or visit my other blog, Bronzedale Bridal Designs at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Skirt Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Henry VIII' Tunic

This portrait of Henry VIII is one I'd seen so many times that I'd stopped really looking at it. It wasn't until I was looking through a book about Tudor and Jacobean Jewellery, and was actually looking for ideas that I really noticed the detail on Henry VIII's clothes.

This design uses some of the details from the portrait, the tunic is a similar colour and the embroidery is inspired by that on Henry VIII's tunic, (though I'm afraid I didn't quite do it justice - that sort of intricacy is incredibly difficult to try and copy.) The tunic is very loose, but is pulled in at the waist by a belt. It has simple, short sleeves reaching to the middle of the upper arm and a bateau neckline. It reaches to the top of the thigh and would be made out of a light cotton material.

Detail of the belt

Detail of the embroidery

I hope you like this design, it is part of my 'Designs inspired by History' project. For more designs, check back here next week or visit my other blog, Bronzedale Bridal Designs at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Tunic Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'A Place of Greater Safety' Summer Coat

I was a bit unsure about reading A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel simply because I know next to nothing about French history (or any history other than British history for that matter) so I wasn't sure whether I would follow it. I'm glad I did read it, it's an amazing book.

It was quite a while after I finished it that I google image searched Lucile Desmoulins and came up with this picture (which is believed to be of Lucile Desmoulins) and decided to use it for a design sketch.

I've called this design a summer coat, is that an actual thing? I'm not sure. It probably ought to exist, if only for the Great British summertime. This design loosely copies the clothes worn by Lucile Desmoulins in the portrait. I have found the colour almost impossible to get right, and I'm still not sure about it, the colour in the portrait looks prettier.

The coat has a gathered front like the one in the portrait, an embroidered waist panel and reaches to the top of the thigh. It has close fitting sleeves, a high collar and a semi shoulder cape (I don't know if there's a better name for that.) It fastens at the front with small buttons. 

Detail on the embroidered waist panel

Detail on the collar

I hope you like this design, it is part of my 'Designs inspired by Literature' project. For more designs, check back here next week or visit my other blog, Bronzedale Bridal Designs at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Coat Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs