Taking libertys, twice!

It was my birthday on Monday and I turned 30!  I felt that such a milestone birthday deserved a good dress.  I had recently bought myself some beautiful Liberty poplin with pencils on it and for my dress I turned to what is now becoming my regular birthday dress pattern; the Deer and Doe Belladone.  I love this pattern and need to make very few alterations to get it to fit me well.

I made the classic Belladone (the only one my pattern includes, although the new versions include a closed back option).  I used my lovely Liberty poplin, which is hands down the most expensive fabric I’ve ever bought!  Luckily for my bank balance, the Belladone only requires a metre and a half.  For the binding and piping round the waistband I used a pink cotton from my stash which is apparently fated to always be used for binding my Belladones; I used it here for last years dress too!  The only alteration I made was my standard one of lengthening the bodice to accommodate my long torso.

When the Indie pattern month challenges were announced, the ‘one pattern two ways’ challenge seemed like a lot of work to me, so I didn’t consider taking part.  However, I had recently also bought some liberty tana lawn which I wanted to make a peplum top from and when I started thinking about what pattern to use, I kept thinking about the bodice of the Belladone and decided to make it up as a peplum.

I decided to make a closed back version of the Belladone for my peplum.  As my paper pattern is an older one, it doesn’t include the closed back version, however there is a tutorial on how to change it here on the Deer and Doe blog.  I extended the bodice pieces so as to eliminate the waistband and extended the front skirt piece to at the top to allow me to eliminate the pockets.

I even made a matching bracelet in a scrap of leftover fabric.

I love making a pattern more than once, it gives such confidence to make something that you’ve made more than once as you know exactly how it will fit (maybe this is why some people make muslins).  It’s also nice to find a pattern that you like enough to make multiple times.  Further details about both garments and some more photos of my birthday trip to Amsterdam, where these photos were taken, can be found on my blog.