My meadow wedding dress

Hannah Shkandrij has been working with us in the studio one day a week for nearly three years now. Shes the one who packages your meadow posies, wraps the bobbins for tiny treasures and cuts your wallpaper samples. She may help out in my business but she also has a business of her own because she is an embroidery artist. Over lunch we tend to talk business. Hers is young, mine is old. She likes to pick my brain. I like to share.

Since she's worked here we have watched her business grow. She invested in an embroidery machine which was a huge learning curve but it meant she could add more products to her repertoire. Her list of stockists is ever growing and she works on hand embroidered pieces as well as machine. We're always hearing about her latest workshop or commission and recently she has been working on a very special commission for me...

My wedding dress.

I knew I wanted a really simple dress, something comfortable and light that I could wear comfortably in a field, and after trawling the internet for weeks (achh traditional wedding dresses are SO not my thing) I was delighted to find this simple linen dress from Mayy London on Etsy and I asked Hannah if she would embroider tall grasses on the skirt.

I chose some of my favourite meadow motifs, most of which you'll find in my Paper Meadow and Daisy Meadow wallpapers

and I played with the design on the computer.

We drew them out and traced them onto a pattern.

Then we got the stems digitised so that Hannah could stitch them on her machine and after MUCH sampling and testing and learning about doing big shapes on a small embroidery bed, SHE DID IT!

The results are stunning.

The details are so delicate

The threads shimmer in the light.

Looking at this dress I get the same feeling as when I'm sitting in a meadow looking at real grasses. It makes my belly go all funny. It's simple beauty right there.

Hannah also made me something else.

An embroidered cushion filled with lavender, the design based on the quaking grass ring that Dean twisted together behind his back on the day he proposed. Our rings will be tied to it (so we don't lose them in the grass) at the ceremony. 

I tried to think of a way to incorporate the quaking grass into our real rings but it was too tricky because I wanted a very simple ring so to have our rings sit in the little nest of it will be really special.

It was so lovey to work with Hannah in this way and we've enjoyed turning this idea into something real and beautiful together. I look forward to showing you the full dress, when I'm in it, and photos from our special day very soon. 

You can see Hannah's beautiful work on her website and instagram.