'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

'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

'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

'Ightham Mote' Jeans

I designed this after I found a leaflet for National Trust membership. It had a suit of armour with a lot of elegant scrolly decoration on it. Looking it up, the suit of armour is from Ightham Mote, a manor house in Kent dating back to the 1300s. The house looks stunning, so I've included a link to the National Trust webpage for it:

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ightham-mote

The suit of armour on the National Trust leaflet

As for the suit of armour, it dates from between 1800 and 1900. The design takes the scrolly detail on the front of the suit of armour and uses it on the waistband, pockets and on the decorative denim shapes above and below the knee. The styling on the knees involves three pieces of denim, stitched over with decorative running stitches in a darker embroidery thread. The turned up cuffs of the trouser legs have upright lines stitched upon them, and are also edged with the same decorative running stitch as is used on the knees. I wasn't sure about the cuffs on the trousers, I couldn't decide whether the design worked better without them, so if preferred the cuffs could not be included.

Detail of the decoration around the knee

Detail of the decoration on the pocket

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by History' project. For more designs check back here next week.

Trousers design, images and detail © Bronzedale Designs

'Aschenputtel' Trousers

Arthur Rackham is probably one of my favourite artists. If you've never heard of him, he was an illustrator, born in 1867 and lots of his illustrations were for fairy stories or children's books. He did illustrations for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Alice in Wonderland and a Christmas Carol.

I drew this design after finding an Arthur Rackham illustration that I'd never seen before called Aschenputtel at the Ball. After a bit of research it turns out that Aschenputtel is a German variation of Cinderella and that the illustration was created for a book of fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1909.

Close up of the detail on the trousers

The design takes the detail on part of Aschenputtel's dress and uses the pattern on the trousers. The waist of the trousers has several folds of fabric gathered to a point, and copies the style of the off shoulder dress that Aschenputtel is wearing.

I wear these sort of trousers a lot as they are really comfy. The waist and ankles are elasticated, and they would be made of a light cotton. The design is quite simple, but it took me a surprising amount of time to draw them because of the intricate pattern on them.

Thank you for taking the time to look at this design. It is part of my 'Designs inspired by Art' Project. For my next design check back here next week.  

Trousers images and design © Bronzedale Designs