The two dresses in today’s post were made nearly a year apart! The first one I made for Halloween 2017, and the second one I finished two days ago after wearing the original one to teach on Halloween this year and remembering how much I loved the pattern hack I did for the first one. The dresses are a mashup of the Deer & Doe Belladone and the Christine Haynes Emery.
Belladone is definitely a “tried ‘n’ true” pattern for me, but it’s funny because I don’t actually like the little cap sleeve thing the original pattern has going on. It always gets bunched up in my armpit and isn’t very comfortable on me. Plus I don’t like how it looks enough to make it worth it. So I’d previously made a couple versions of Belladone with the shoulder taken in to be sleeveless, and I love them. With the first dress below, I was originally going to go for a Wednesday Addam’s kind of look with a white collar on top of a spooky fabric, but then ended up ditching the collar because I didn’t have enough time. I wanted it to have short sleeves, but goodness knows I don’t have the skills to draft a sleeve on my own (yet?). I already owned the Emery dress pattern and had made it a couple times sleeveless as well, but remembered that it came with a sleeve as well. My super basic strategy to get sleeves onto the Belladone was to lay the bodice pattern pieces for the Emery over top of the Belladone and change the arm shape to whatever the Emery did. I did this for both the front and back bodice, and then I just used the Emery sleeve piece with the newly “drafted” armscye. And it worked really well!
The fabric I used is by Sarah Watts for the Boo! collection for Cotton + Steel. This particular print is called “Hallow Lane” and the colourway is blue pearlescent. I love Sarah Watts’ illustration style, and really wanted to be able to wear this print instead of putting it in a quilt. It works really well for Halloween as a dress because I can wear it to teach without being in full-on costume, because I teach double bass and cello and need freedom of movement. Wearing it this year made me want to wear it at other times of year besides October 31, so I’m going to try to do that going forward!
Belladone includes a hem facing, which I’m super into. I find it’s such an elevated detail and gives good structure around the hem. It also always makes me feel really motivated to do more elevated seam finishes inside, and I usually do all French seams as seen below. Even the pockets and the armholes! I think I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog post about Belladone, but I find it strange that they include a hem facing but not instructions to use a waistband facing. The instructions tell you to sew the bodice and skirt to the waistband and then finish the edges of those seams using a zig zag or a serger, but I’m not doing a hem facing and then just serging the waistband. So I always cut an extra set of waistband pieces and face it instead. I was running out of fabric so I just used a white cotton I had around for this one. I also ended up using non-matching bias tape on the neckline vs. the hem facing because it’s just what I had.
As mentioned above, I got inspired by wearing my original version on the 31st and decided to drag out my modified pattern pieces to make one that was less…seasonally specific. In fact, the one I finished this weekend is honestly pretty out of season but I don’t caaaaaare. I wear bright colours and florals all year ’round if the mood strikes me. I got this floral from Patch and cut out the dress right away. With Belladone, I always sew all the darts and pleats first because it’s one of those things I’m not that into, and then I don’t procrastinate because of dreading them. There are 8 darts (four on the bodice front, two on the bodice back, and two on the skirt back) plus 2 little pleats on the skirt front. It’s really not that much work, it’s just a mental block I seem to have. And then everything else went together quite quickly since I’ve made the pattern a bunch before (sans sleeves).
I had a bunch of turquoise bias tape already made from previous projects. I made it to make piping for an accent on a Chardone skirt I made ages ago (and sadly never wear, I need to change something to make me want to wear it), and then ended up using the leftover piping from THAT project in my recent Opium coat – I’m realizing that apparently I only use the turquoise piping/bias tape on projects that involve Deer & Doe patterns. How strange! I am kind of a Deer & Doe junkie though. There was still loads of the original bias tape left over, and there still is even after using it in this dress, so you’ll see it again eventually. I used it to finished the edge of the hem facing and on the neckline. I often have a dreadful time getting bias finishes to lie flat (and I’ve tried EVERYTHING, trust me) but this one turned out pretty well I think! Huzzah! I also cut the centre back of the bodice and skirt on the selvage so I wouldn’t have to finish the edge. I didn’t do that for the Halloween dress above (I’m clearly much older and wiser now, one year later) so those edges are finished with more mis-matched bias tape. For the record, the turquoise being very coordinated with the main fabric is purely coincidental, it was just the only bias tape I had to hand that wasn’t really wide or polyester-ish. But it looks nice, I think!
And then I used another of my new tags! It makes me so happy to see my own label in the clothes and have it look all professional. 🙂 It was nice to get this relatively quick make in for myself, since I’ve been quite busy with Christmas gift-making. I bought the most insane fabric for my sister’s gift and I’m really excited to start working with it. I may have to wear sunglasses while I sew with it (not even joking), but that’s all I’ll say. I’ve also been really inspired by the #sewfrosting challenge that Heather Lou at Closet Case Patterns and Kelli at True Bias are hosting, and I spent a good chunk of time yesterday working on a test version of a pattern mash-up I’m hoping to use for a special fabric that definitely qualifies as frosting. It’s a golden yellow 100% silk I bought at a giant fabric marketplace when I was in South Korea in 2016, and I’m excited for it to leave my stash and become clothing. And in the spirit of frosting, I’m hoping it’ll be a dress with a faux-wrap front bodice with a floor length high-low hem. Go big or go home, right?
