Another birthday dress

I'm aware that I'm slightly milking my birthday this year but hey that's what birthdays are for. As we both turn 30 this summer, my cousin and I decided to have a joint party. So obviously I needed a(nother) new dress! 

I had the perfect combo available from my stash too. A couple of years ago my dad brought me some gorgeous turquoise raw silk back from a holiday to India. I had been afraid to use it on something that I didn't think was special enough or on a pattern I hadn't tested (muslins are not my thing). Enter the bhl Anna dress that I have made a couple of times before and so know what adjustments need to be made. 

Like a number of people I had found that the back gaped on my original version so I followed Sonja's tutorial for adjusting the back, it worked like a charm. 

The silk was slightly rough in texture so did not slide around at all when cutting or seeing. It was a dream to sew up and it pressed well however it wrinkles like crazy so I am actually going to have to pull out my iron when I want to wear this dress. I lined the whole thing in a turquoise rayon from my stash. I'd bought it from fabricsforsale to make a top but when it arrived I found the colour a bit too strong to want to wear and also when I prewashed it, the colour leaked badly so into the stash it went for just such a project as this-perfect! 

For some reason I kept putting off making this dress, sometimes I get wierd blocks about stuff so it ended up being a bit of a rush to get it finished. Not ideal when there was much hand sewing to be done! I hand stitched the lining to the zip and hand sewed the entire hem! I cannot tell you how much I hate hand stitching my clothes (which is wierd as I enjoy it on quilts etc). Needless to say the lining was machine hemmed. 

I'm so pleased with the final result and had so many compliments on it at my party!  I felt so comfortable in it and I can see it getting many more wears for the rounds of weddings and birthday parties that my friends are having. Apparently this dress has magical powers too, I can go on looking elegant in it even when very much the worse for wear! 

Birthday dress

So Monday was my 30th birthday! Everyone knows a birthday needs a new dress and since I had recently just bought this amazing pencil print cotton poplin from Libertys, I decided to go down the really grown up route and make a dress with little pencils on it to enter my fourth decade in! 

In what is now becoming a bit of a birthday tradition, I used the Deer and Doe Belladone for my birthday dress. Last years dress can be seen here. 

Aside from lengthening the bodice, which is a standard alteration for me, although I could have done with adding another cm or 2, I didn't make any changes to the pattern. I used a pink cotton from my stash for the binding. This cotton has been exclusively used for binding Belladones, since I also used it for last years version too.  I also used it to create some piping which I sewed either side of the waistband and I like the definition that this gives to the waistband.

There's not a lot else to say about this dress apart from it being awesome and I could develop a serious Liberty fabric habit based on these last 2 makes!  Again, I wore this make on my lovely birthday trip to Amsterdam and I felt really great floating around Amsterdam in this dress.

I loved Amsterdam and really recommend it as a destination for anyone who hasn't been.  It's just so pretty and also everyone seems so chilled out ( and not just because of the cannabis!)  There are lots of lovely museums, markets and canals and we had a lovely few days just wandering the streets.

As an added bonus there are several fabric shops and a fabric market in Amsterdam.  The market is on a Monday morning-what better way for a sewist to spend their birthday?  I properly blew any chance of stashbusting at this market.

So far my 30s have been filled with holidays, family, friends and fabric, it really has not been too bad. If the next decade pans out this well, I'll be very happy!