Belladone at Blenheim

Hello lovely people

I've been a bit absent for a while, this is partly due to a camera failure so I had a lack of pictures and partly due to me starting a doctorate course last week and being the most tired I have ever been in my life!  However, I'm back and I have a bunch of stuff to show you, starting with a Belladone dress.

I've had the Deer and Doe Belladone pattern in my stash for a while, I had a really clear vision of a dress I wanted to make with it.  However, I didn't get the fabric for it at the same time and am now on a self imposed fabric buying ban so I reached for my stash.   I got 6 metres of this navy and blue stripey fabric, which I think is a linen blend, at a junk shop in Hampstead.  They sold it to me for £5! I was so happy with this find that I made my boyfriend take this picture:

I made up the dress with no alterations, grading from a size 10 on top to a 12 on the hips.

 Pockets!!!

 I made no effort to pattern match on this so am really happy with the great chevrons that are going on here.

Ironically I made an effort to pattern match the waistband and its irritatingly just a little off!  The zip does not end wonky, its just the shadow of Rosie's alteration points.

I really like the Deer and Doe patterns, they're printed on nice sturdy paper which makes them good to trace off, they come in a pretty envelope and the instructions are great.  I didn't make any adjustments and am happy with the dress but I have some adjustments I will make for the next one.  There is too much fabric at the top of the back which needs to be removed next time.  I also need to lengthen the bodice and maybe grade up a size over the ribs.  All totally doable and I am sure I will do them for another version as I love this dress.

All of the outdoor photos were taken during a lovely day at Blenheim Palace (birth place of Winston Churchill) and I decided to get a bit snap happy so if you're here for the sewing and have no interest in seeing pictures of my weekend adventures, tune out now. 

To be perfectly honest I was a bit disappointed by the house as you get to see very little of it and the rooms that you do get to see are not particularly interesting, however the grounds were beautiful and we got really lucky with the weather.

 Cliched autumn photo alert!

 There is an Ai Weiwei exhibition going on at Blenheim at the moment, with his sculptures dotted through the house and grounds which I thought was great.  We tried to get an arty reflection photo in one of the spheres: 

The reason for this weekend in the countryside was that my boyfriend was running a half marathon at Belnheim Palace.  He did really well and I thought I would add a picture of him at the end of the run:

He doesn't even look tired!

Picture with one of his very cold supporters.  I really did not want to be touching someone this sweaty but it's a nice picture.

Have a lovely weekend.