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! 

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! 

Me made May 16 days 1-8

Two posts in one week!  It must be May!  I'm going to start this week's round up with a refashion, partly to save those of you who follow me on Instagram from total boredom and partly because I love it. 

I started with this jumper; a men's Asos  lambswool jumper.  It had a couple of moth (or something) holes and was too big. 

I started by pinning to bring the arm holes up to what might approximate my shoulders and pinning in the sides. I also put in bust darts which for future reference is a mistake in a fabric like this. 

I wanted a copped jumper so removed the ribbing, took a chunk off the length and then reattached the ribbing.  I found that serging the ribbing back on resulted in a very wavy join so I then topstitched the seam.  It's not really visible as the fabric absorbs the stitches but makes the whole jumper sit more pleasingly.

 I also wanted to try out the hi-low thing which is everywhere and I've never been a big fan of but thought might work well for this jumper.

The next step was to darn and embellish. I knew I wanted a bit of excitement on my jumper. One of my friends has a great jumper with similar gems on the front and I shamelessly ripped it off. The gems were from simply sequins and at £10.95 for a bag, they added considerably to the cost of my refashion. However I still have loads left for other projects.

You can just about see the darning in the above photo.  I feel like it's seriously overshadowed by the bling and this was exactly what I wanted.

You're not getting to see this jumper on as obviously the second I finished adjusting a lambswool sweater, the weather upped its game and I didn't fancy wearing it in the 20+ degree weather we've been experiencing.  I'm totally not complaining, even if I do have to wait a while to wear my new jumper. 

So on to the daily round up:

Day 1: lady skater dress. I've not made one of these for a while and I think it may be time for another! 

Day 2: feather plantain t-shirt (unblogged)

Day 3: Ultimate trousers and thrifted top

Day 4: refashioned jumper skirt, Angelica top

Day 5: Sleeveless maxi lady skater (unblogged) This is the point at which I started to fail at the photos.  Seriously it took 5 days!  I'm sure this will pop up again this month though as wearing it made me remember how much I love maxi dresses.

Day 6: My Jade skirt and a Dolores top, complete with photo bombers who are apparently better at posing for photos than I am.

Day 7: Carolyn pyjamas
I was super hungover this day so did not fancy getting a photo but I enjoyed having my lovely pyjamas to feel sorry for myself in!

Day 8: ultimate shorts (unblogged) and vintage tie top

Right, thats my week-see you all again next week.  I'm loving seeing everyones round ups.