Save the Dates

It's official...I will become Mrs Harding on the 29th June 2013, 3 days after our 10 year anniversary! The Save the Dates have all gone out, as the majority of our guests live miles and miles away and a few overseas. We decided on vintage Cornish postcards, for a cute and simple little memo.

As of next Saturday we will be half way though our engagement! 

We have three bridesmaids dresses and three suits hanging on our walls (thank goodness for picture rails!), boxes of favours, shoes, bridal prettiness and wedding decorations taking up the sewing room and cupboard space. Our invitations and paper goods are designed and ready to go to the printers in a few months time and things are slowly but surely being booked and deposits paid. I keep imagining walking up the aisle with my Dad, past all my favourite people and seeing James waiting for me. It's a pretty amazing thought, especially when dissertation research is all too much. 

Love emme lou x

Wedding Week Planning

I've been on a bit of a go slow with organising myself, my final degree year summer prep plan, and wedding DIY plan. Today though I dug out my beautiful to do list pad, from BoyGirlParty and filled a couple of pages. It's time to get organised! I may be a little excited at this prospect, having all aspects of my life neatly filed away, but once all the dreary tasks and planning have been sorted I get a whole week with my mum! She is over from Austria and it will be the first time I have seen her since before being engaged! Six months has flown by, and although we have done heaps of planning for the big day (now under a year away!) it hasn't felt quite real, however that will all change on wedding week! My mum hasn't even see my Wedding dress! 

I have had to get a sample sent from the headquarters in London, to a Bridal boutique just outside of Plymouth, that will be available for one day as it is being taken for a shoot straight after! It's been quite a palaver (for the store owner!) but it saves us travelling 6 hours! We also have our amazing caterer  coming to our house for a canape and wine tasting along with the best man, and we will be having a venue visit too, as my mum hasn't seen where we will be tying the knot either. 

I've been working on some special photo shoot prop/accessories this week (whilst getting over a horrible cold) and the Save the Dates are almost all done! 

I thought I'd share a little peek at some wedding details, so firstly here is our photographer, Ali Paul.

A lovely (mega talented) girl on my course told me she had an awesome photographer boyfriend who does weddings, and sent me a shameless plug...I'm soooo glad she did. Ali's photo's are beyond beautiful. He has a soft, natural and somewhat ethereal style and is so laid back, which will be great on the day! 

I can't wait to see the memories he captures. Go check him out! 

Love emme lou x

Feeling Clucky!

Last week I applied for a great competition found on Wed Magazine, to win a hen makeover and photoshoot with the lovely Elizabeth @ Elizabeth Armitage Photography. The prize included hair and makeup, for the Bride and two maids, in her new Exeter Studio and an A4 book of images. To enter you had to give details of your hen party/photo shoot ideas so I went about gathering images and making a mood board on photoshop! 

I no longer have a chief Bridesmaid, so I am planning my own hen night, which is perfect as I do love to plan and I'm super excited for it! 

Anyway, on Tuesday I found out I WON! I never win anything and now I won a hen do with my two beautiful maids!! 

Elizabeth rang me today and she sounds so amazingly lovely, creative and excited! We both have soooo many ideas, and I can't wait to get planning with her. 

I won't share the mood board yet as it'll give away the hen 'theme' to all my chickens, but no tiara's, penis straws or party buses (no offence to those of you who have that but it's not very me). Here's one of her previous Hens...

I'm a lucky Bride to have not one but two hen dos! 

Love emme lou x

Birdcage bridal

I made my dear friend two veils, the first was more structured, silk, no beads but a few ivory cream pearls on the netting. Then her dress arrived, terrible and we managed to find another, thank god for Ellen at Lavender Rose Bridal, Penryn. This is the second birdcage, and the one she wore on her wedding day. The groom loved it, and she looked stunning. 

 ©emmelou.

Bill Hill & Co.

The last big project of the year was a live brief for Bill Hill & Co/ John Lewis. It was a pretty rushed project for me. We had 4/5 weeks, minus 2 for figuring out what I wanted to do/finishing off toddler dress for exhibition. Add in a few sick days and crazy wedding drama for our besties that involved scouting Cornwall for a new dress 3 weeks before the wedding and I was pretty flustered and behind.
I decided the best way forward for the commercial interiors brief was to do what excites me...

All work and images ©emmelou.

Sister time in London!

I took the *megabus to London in April to visit my lovely little sister in the big city. *never again!!

We had a lovely few days together, although I was pretty shattered, but we managed to get a bit of shopping done in Portobello, sight see, giggle and catch up. We also jumped on the train to visit my future family in law, and showed my sister my wedding dress! Here's some snippets from our trip...

 love emme lou x

Where's the time gone?!

I've just seen that my last post was MARCH!?! Was I asleep from March till June? It feels like it's been a matter of weeks, but I've been so busy that time has run away from me. From then to now there has been a trip to London, two wedding dresses bought (only one is mine!), three deadlines met and gone, 3 birthdays in our house, and one wedding!

So I think I'll start from the place I left off...

Here is the finished Baby Dress! Well toddler, age 2-3 but anything mini to me is baby! I presented to the lovely Isolde and Josie of the Thread Project and now it's hanging in my sewing room, wanting a little person to wear it. It was a labour of love, entirely hand embroidered, hand stitched neck, and sleeves, with teeeeny tiny stitches and fully lined.

©emmelou. x

Work in progress

Well I didn't make my deadline! I was still working an hour and a half after it, when the head of design came around the corner! She was fine and lovely and my freaking out subsided, to oh well, it's a work in progress! The bottom of the dress has 80% of the embroidery left to be sewn and then it all needs to be put together to make the Oh so pretty party dress after Easter. I guess a complete redesign three days before the deadline was a little optimistic. 

The first two photos are of the final design before re design! The little semi circles are the sleeves, and I made the buttons which were then turned into hair clips for the new design! (see below) 

the sewing due to the tiny scale was painful, but so fun. I'm off to the city (Truro!) to have a floral consultation (squeeeaaal!) and will buy lots more mustard thread to complete. 

Love emme lou x

Redesign

 I started sewing my dress. After the teal dyeing went wrong I decided not to dye at all!
I chose a dull palette of threads, from my bright and pretty colour palette. Why?! Because I panicked and rushed my design, thinking it would look great. But as I was sat sewing at 11pm in my cute little room last night, staring at all the thread I knew it looked kind of horrid. Denial denial! Carry on sewing...

Today with my little sleeves and my buttons all done, I got to work on my yoke bib. I popped my name on the tutorial list and cracked on. 

My brilliant tutor told me...the colours were DRAB, and she wouldn't buy it. The worst thing?! I TOTALLY agreed! And she was also right how the colours looked like Brownies! As memories of wearing a mustard jumper and brown sash came flooding back I wondered what the hell was I thinking?! 

So......after a dog walk in the sun, cutting the grass, washing, power cleaning and buying tickets to see my baby sister in London, (megabus = more money for wedding shopping!)  I'm getting my head together to redesign. I need to make it fun, bright and something a stylish mummy like my tutor would want to buy for their little girl!!  OH and the deadline is Friday. 

Fingers crossed.

Toddler dress

 I re hemmed the toile dress last night, feeling extremely broody and reminding myself that I am getting married and that's much more fun than the cute little thing that would wear the dress!
I measured (sneakily) 2-3 year old dresses in a large High street department store this week, to see the average length (which works out at 45cm from neck to hem if you were wondering!) as it was looking more like a Christening gown than a S/S mock dress.
I'm now trying to get the perfect teal shade to dye the bottom of the actual garment. It's going to be a long afternoon tomorrow, hopefully it will go smoothly and I will finally be ready to embroider!

Love emme lou x

Puppy Boredom

I came home after a disaster day at Uni which resulted in me redesigning on the train and spending 3 hours in Truro fabrics,  (mostly sat on the floor colour matching!) to a very sticky gooey mess...

I didn't realise the ten eggs nestled in their egg box fresh from our friends ducks and hens were in puppy reach, turns out he can jump pretty high for a little dog! After mopping and picking up shell, the little terror repeated my lesson of leaving things on the worktops and pulled them down again! This is what happens when we run out of raw hide chew bones. MUST buy some more! 

Love emme lou x

Visuals and Toiles

I'm working on my visuals and designs for my taking it forward production piece project at the moment. I was going to make the cushions, but I always make cushions, I LOVE cushions, but I know I can do them so wanted to push myself and do something a little different that I'm really passionate about. 

Children's wear!  I've made my toile for a girls smock dress, age 2-3 years. I worked on the pattern for the frill cap sleeves with the head of Textile Design. We're getting pretty carried away with the finishing and pattern making, but it's great that she knows I love making and is 'allowing' me this, as we are textile designers not fashion students. I really want to blur the line as much as I can!

I have a LOT of designing, sewing and dyeing to do over the next couple of weeks, but I can't wait! 

I'm pretty torn between a cream & peach ombre dip dyed dress or peach & coral, but I think having the base neutral will allow the colours to really 'pop' in the embroidered designs. We shall see! 

Love emme lou x

Cute as a Button

I created some cute buttons that could be used both in interiors and fashion....

Can't wait to see these on my production piece!

Love emme lou x

Feeling Fruity!

Wow..2 Months since my last post! I've been posting on our little family wedding blog constantly, so this one has been a little neglected. I can't wait to share all the lovely wedding things and developments! It's so sooo excited!

A quick little update on our plans...we have a photographer, venue, registrar, marquee, DRESS, almost 2 of the 3 bridesmaid dresses, a special commission, and our cake designed already! I have a long list of really fun and pretty DIY projects to do over the Easter and Summer breaks, so that everything is boxed and ready to go, so it doesn't get in the way of dissertation writing and degree show sewing!

All of our wedding colours in our palette are coming together perfectly and it's a perfect mix of both me and James, which, after all...is what a wedding and marriage is all about!

I thought I'd share some embroidery from my last project which I am further developing into a garment in my current one.

We were given the brief from The Thread Project, to take the traditional Lambani embroidery and make it relevant to the western world whilst putting our own spin on it, for the interior market.

I decided to use fruit as my 'theme' and inspiration, creating a bright, bold, fun and modern take on their tradition. Bananas, melons, kiwi, oranges and blueberries! 

Buttons coming up next!

Love emme lou x

Wedding Planning

We started our Wedding planning as soon as we were engaged! We have 18 months until the big day, where we will celebrate our decade together and the start of our marriage. 

So far we have a venue and photographer, which makes everything a lot less daunting (except the dress hunt!) but the biggest stress I have is organisation; alongside my degree! My time management is getting better but chatting to my sister on skype all afternoon and blogging isn't exactly writing my essay or doing contextual and visual research.  

We took a little trip across the Tamar to try and find a wedding planner, filofax organiser at the weekend so everything could be perfectly filed and jotted down, out of my head, and managed before starting class again next week. We found one wedding organiser that was beyond ugly and tiny Filofaxes that were £30 upwards. So I decided to buy £4 worth of filofax inners consisting of a diary and business card insert and made one! I used an old Enid Blyton book, book rings, card, paper and plastic wallets, antique Austrian lace (that was given to me!) and needle and thread.  

I love it, it has everything I could possibly need, with room to make additions and it's personal to us. I just hope I don't loose it! 

 Love emme lou x