Deer&Doe: A Blue Belladone

My goodness, what a crazy January it’s been. You know, the kind where you look up and by some magical occurence it’s practically the end of Febuary? Ha!

I was seduced by the Belladone at January’s Social Sewing (thanks to Helen’s rockin’ red robe, and Amanda’s polka-dot version), and decided to drop all my existing sewing plans to knock it up. For a such a nice easy and simple pattern I screwed up numerous times – chalk it down to my non-sewing life being overly demanding at the moment and having less brain capacity for sewing as a result.

My finest Belladone moments:
– Toiling in non-stretch calico and sewing with stretch cotton. DUH. I had to deal with major gape-age at the back and due to the pattern design, the centreback seam had to take the fallout.
 – I thought I was being smart when I decided to add facings to the back to clean up the zip finish. That totally backfired when I realised I had to take in the centre back seam.
 – I initially raised the neckline. I then decided, AFTER hand sewing on the silk chiffon bias binding that it was too high, and had to rip that off, cut it back down and hand sew the binding on again.
 – Sewing with silk chiffon. The baddest boy of the fabric world (and probably why I always want it). I proceed to promise myself I will never sew with silk chiffon ever again. Also, Chiffon was NOT destined to be bias binding.
 – Realise the next-in-line in my sewing queue demands a silk chiffon ruffle.  *head-desk*.

The zip finishing on my toile, as per Deer & Doe instructions. Hmm.

Avec Facing. Much nicer. (and the scene of the centre-back seam crime)

My favourite kind of seam finishing!

Killer seam matching and pretty pockets on the inside

Somewhere in amongst all that I got so frustrated at my lack of progress I started and finished sewing an entirely different project (appearing soon at a blog post near you).

The one thing that I do really love about this dress is the combo of fabrics – the blue stretch cotton sateen (shiny side to the inside) I bought in Buenos Aires last year, and some digitally printed silk chiffon from Tessuti which I used at the back and at the waist-band pieces for contrast. The silk kinda reminds me of that short-lived fashion craze of the galaxy print. From looking at the back of me in these photos though it looks like I may need to fix up some of that chiffon binding. 

I cut a straight size 44 – which of course meant I needed to take it in at the waist, a usual thing I have to do when I’m too lazy to grade between sizes when I’m tracing it off. Silly really, because it takes twice as long to adjust a calico pattern than it does to make the changes at the tracing stage. Proof that shortcuts at the start end up making the journey longer?

I haven’t heard anything specifically, but Deer & Doe clearly draft for a C cup, because the bodice darts of this dress fit me really well. No pooching or excess fabric at my arm – impressive! I won’t say perfectly though, because I was taught that bust darts should always point towards your bust point (just a politically correct way of saying nipple) but finish an inch or so before the actual point. I know this kind of theory can be a grey area and not everyone adheres to it – but these darts are a little odd. The dart coming from the side seam goes up and across my bust point, and points to my armpit rather than my bust point. Ok, so my boobs doesn’t sit as high as they did prior to gravity and I becoming mortal enemies, but hey. The dart coming from the waist band stops bang on my bust point. A google image search for ‘belladone robe’ shows this occurs on most everyone whose made it, so I know it’s not just my physiology that’s a factor. Yeah, I could have adjusted this… but I wanted a new dress, and I wanted it NOW.

That’s really my only quibble though,, so it’s not that bad really. I took the chance to clean up the insides with some petersham ribbon at the waistband.

All in all, I don’t mind this dress. I like it a whole lot more when I catch the back of it on a reflective surface – it reminds me how funky this dress is :)

The Stats:
00:35  Pattern Preparation (tracing/draft changes)
04:20  Toile (cutting/sewing/fitting)
01:35  Fabric Preparation (cutting/interfacing)
10:45  Sewing
17:15  hours