Liberty peplum top

It's indie pattern month over on the monthly stitch. Are you watching all the awesome stuff people are making for the challenges?  I have a couple of versions of the Deer and Doe Belladones that I've made to enter for the one pattern, two ways challenge. Today I'm going to show you version number one. 

I had a metre of this gorgeous Liberty tana lawn that I wanted to make a peplum top from but I didn't have a pattern. In my pondering, I kept retuning to the shape of my belladone bodice and thought I would give hacking a go. 

My Belladone pattern is an old one so doesn't have the closed back version that the updated versions do, however there is a tutorial about how to create it for yourself here on the deer and doe blog, which I followed to create my back piece. I also lengthened the back and front pieces so as to leave out the waistband piece. I didn't sew up the darts in the back bodice piece so as to leave more room. There is a little too much excess in the back so I should probably have just reduced the darts slightly but this does make it lovely and loose and cool in hot weather.  

I extended the back pieces to create a pleat in the back but by mistake I cut out 2 back skirt pieces as with the normal pattern pieces, if I'd been thinking properly I would have cut out one back skirt piece on the fold, eliminating the extra seam allowance. I extended the front skirt piece to eliminate the pockets and also leave room for another couple of little pleats to add some oomph to the peplum.  This can be seen with the wind catching it in the photo below.

Tana lawn sews like a dream and I decided to make a special effort and French seam all of the seams so it looks lovely inside. I even French seamed the zip seam which went better than I expected. 

These photos were taken in Amsterdam. My wonderful sister surprised me with an unexpected birthday trip there for the weekend. We had an amazing time, with glorious weather and silliness.  

Everyone always mentions how awesome tana lawn is and how great it feels to wear, let me just add my voice to this and say that it was incredible to wear in the heat. I love this top, it feels pretty and flattering. Peplums are great.  I even made a little matching bracelet to go with it. 

Thanks for an amazing trip Nini and for taking all my photos!  I'll be back later in the week with my birthday dress; Belladone mark 2!