I love this dress!

This one is a favorite of mine. For Heather's dress, I redesigned her mom's (lovingly handmade) wedding gown, which originally had a high necked lace bodice, long lace sleeves, and a straight, fitted skirt made from silk pebble crepe. The neckline became a scoop front and back. I found some matching ivory silk crepe to remake the bodice underlayer. I dismantled the lace sleeves and cut apart the lace flowers to scatter across a new sheer skirt layer (organza, gathered and full). The finishing touch--an ivory silk charmeuse sash informally knotted in the front. Heather was a good sport and did a little mini photo shoot with me in front of the beautiful doors of the First Presbyterian Church. It's steps from the shop--I walk by it every single day!--but I only recently noticed how lovely it is. At the last minute a stiff autumn breeze kicked up, so I also snapped a shot of the dress caught up in the gale. Love, love, love.

Me + NYC

I'm boarding a plane tonight for the New York Bridal Market. Three days of dresses, dresses, dresses! In my off hours I'll be scouring the town for lovely new fabrics and supplies (Mood Fabrics, here I come--with my epic, annotated and heavily underlined shopping list). Whee!

Suzy-Steven wedding

Last weekend I drove out to Sauvie Island, to visit Cistus Nursery. Cistus specializes in drought-tolerant plants that are hardy in our soggy Northwest--eucalyptus from Australia, hebes from New Zealand. While on their website looking for directions, I discovered that one of my brides did her wedding registry through Cistus. What a great idea for a couple starting a new home or building a garden together. It reminded me to email Suzy for wedding photos, and here they are:
Truly some of the sweetest, most joyful wedding photos I've seen.

A cloud of flowers.

I'm working on a new dress for Oregon Bride magazine...the theme is "Summer of Love" and I had a vision of blossoms strewn across the top of a very simple, sweeping gown. Here's a glance of the work in progress...

What's Mine is Yours.

We just got our fall delivery from Mine, the work of London designer Katherine Pont. We love to have UK designers in our shop--we are The English Dept., after all. Katherine's collection of bookish, darkly feminine dresses and tops suits the autumn mood so beautifully. I am swooning. See her whole collection here.

October wedding...

Woodsmoke, cider, tucking in the garden for winter...sweet, melancholy October. Thanks to Kathryn over at Snippet & Ink for including my gold dress in this wistfully beautiful wedding inspiration board. I am feeling the seasonal shift, too, and was inspired to make this dress corsage based on the October mood:Satin-wrapped berries and petals, velvet leaves, pearls, gold tulle, antique key.

Short and sweet (but not too sweet).

Ivory silk taffeta tea length wedding dress for Terri. She obligingly struck a pose so I could photograph the buttons down the back. Although this was just a quick snapshot in the shop, I kind of like the dress paired with black stockings...a touch Edwardian...