The sun was shining. The flowers smelt amazing. You looked absolutely stunning walking down the aisle towards the love of your life, your wedding was the best day of your life! . . . 30 years on, several house moves under the belt, 4 Children grown up and married and your beautiful dress is still kept neatly in the box at the back of your wardrobe . . . So what do you do with your dress after the big day? Jo decided it was time to take her dress out again and have a little fun! “Lampshades! I would like to turn my dress into lampshades!”
Using the gorgeous silk from the train of Jo’s Wedding dress we decided to make a set of Embroidered Lampshades – In the design of Lanhydrock, a multi-layered embroidery which allows the light to diffuse at different gradients emphasising the beautiful pattern work.
This little project took us a couple of weeks to perfect and digitise, over 3 days to stitch out, 8000m of thread and one beautiful wedding dress!
Now I have to admit it took me a little while to pluck up the courage to hit go on the machine and start stitching over the silk, and even then I was bricking it the whole way through. Jo even laughed when I told her I dithered for half a morning and double, triple checking everything was perfect! “ I absolutely love my new lampshades, I’ll miss the dress but now after 31 years I can enjoy it all over again!”
So what do you think of the Lampshades – would you be brave enough to do something radical and transform your dress?
We absolutely love Lanydrock as a lampshade and Jo has inspired us to make it as a part of our Illuminations range (sans the silk wedding dress!) Have a look here.
Alice xx