Home My makesDresses Belladone Dress by Deer and Doe in black and white vichy wool and mustard lining

Belladone Dress by Deer and Doe in black and white vichy wool and mustard lining

by Ladulsatina
22 comments
Belladone Dress by Deer and Doe in black and white vichy wool and mustard lining

Here I am to post a new sewing project finally! 🙂 I’ve thought about what to sew with this black and white vichy wool for months. I bought it on Supercut.it in September and since then I’ve thought about it. I changed my mind thousands of time, but I finally decided to sew a Belladone dress by Deer and Doe, a french indipendent pattern designer. I bought the pattern at Abilmente fair on last October.

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

I’m really happy with my choice. The dress is beautiful (I love the back cutout) and the pattern is perfect. For the first time I didn’t mix the sizes as usual, I chose the 38 and it perfectly fits, without any variation.

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

However I decided to make my life quite a bit more difficult with a series of choices that really put my patience to the test 🙁 :

  • First of all, beautiful fabric but it completely drove me crazy! I tried every which way to match plaids, both in cutting and sewing, but there was no way and I gave up in the end, even if I managed to do it in some points.

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

  • Wool in direct contact on my skin has always bothered me, so I decided to line the bodice. I used a mustard silk fabric that I bought at Gandini Tessuti in Milan last october. I’ve always loved to match yellow with black and this winter I’ve seen this matching in a lot of fashion and design magazines. It gives the products and the garments a touch of retro to in my opinion.

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe. Mustard silk lining

This was my first lining. It was complex to understand how to line, because the shoulders of the bodice were made of two piece instead of one piece only, due to the back cutout. I decided to use a french seam for the shoulders and a bias tape for the neckline and the armholes. The french seam turned out to be bad idea, because with the two fabrics (wool and lining) is too thick. Moreover I was careless and I sewed it using a 2,5 cm seam allowance instead of a 1,5 one, so the bust darts moved up by 1 cm and they are not perfect on the bust 🙁

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Instead I like how the lining of the back cutout came out. I didn’t topstitch because I didn’t want too many visible seams, both in the right side and in the wrong one.

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

  • I decided to use a centered zipper instead of an invisible one. Tragic choice!! 🙂 I had to sew and resew thousands of times, above all in the waistband. In that point the fabric was very thick and the needle didn’t go ahead. So I had to push the fabric ahead myself. As a result the waistband is all misaligned, because I pulled the cloth in order to have it slid under the press footer. I sewed and unsewed it up at least 3 or 4 times, but it didn’t work out. In the end I even risked to damage the wool fabric, so I decided to have my waistband misaligned 🙁 what a pity…probably if I had chosen to use an invisible zipper It would have been perfect. I’ll try to hide this defect with a belt.
    Anyway the most tragic thing has still to come! While I was cutting the tacking of the centered zipper I cut a little piece of the fabric on the right flap…what a disaster! I had to mend the hole, but the defect is so visible 🙁

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Instead I’m really happy of my first handmade bias tape!
I followed this Colette Patterns tutorial (you can also find it in The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnick) and I have to say that, even if it was the first one, it came out well! Bias tape always gives me a lot of satisfaction 😉
I sewed it with the sewing machine on the right side and then I hand-sewed it on the wrong side, in order to not have visible seams outside. It was a long job, but I like the result!

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Finally I hemmed up by hand (I didn’t use the skirt facing of the original pattern).

Despite the mistakes I love this dress! I’m really sorry for having damaged it, and exactly on the back, the stand out of the pattern. Do you have any suggestion to hide the waistband and the hole better? Have you ever damaged a dress exactly in the end?

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ps: It was just a little windy when we took the pictures on Sunday …and so cold!!!

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

Ladulsatina Belladone black and white vichy Dress - Deer and Doe

You may also like

22 comments

Samantha 11 Febbraio 2015 - 4:40

It’s such a cute dress! Even despite the mishaps. Good work!

Reply
LaDulsaTina 11 Febbraio 2015 - 22:59

Thank you Samantha!!! 🙂

Reply
Nicoletta 11 Febbraio 2015 - 13:10

Love this dress and mistakes are part of the learning process. The handmade has not to be perfect but just made with love, and this dress is made with a lot of love.

Reply
LaDulsaTina 11 Febbraio 2015 - 22:59

Thank you Nicoletta!! 🙂 I made it with a lot of love 😉

Reply
Klara 11 Febbraio 2015 - 13:57

Oh dear! Aren’t you a little hard on yourself? This dress looks perfect to me! And matching vichy –good luck with that! You did spectacular work at it anyway. Also on a personal note, I’d like to give you thumbs up for remembering about the french seam, no matter how bulky it came out. I always forget about it and then curse myself because I don’t own a serger and have to make some other finish that usually doesn’t look as neat. I think I need to write myself a big note saying “FRENCH SEAM IS GOODNESS” and place it in a visible spot.

I think that mustard lining is awesome, truly. But say, doesn’t the skirt stick to your tights, not being lined?

Also, yes, it does happen to me that I make a hole in an almost finished piece. It makes me want to cry each time. But I guess we get better with time and know when to be extra careful. So don’t beat yourself up about it.

Now, I don’t know if you do such things, but I got invited to Liebster Award and wanted to invite you, in turn, because I admire your blog, and I linked your blog here: http://robot-heart.blogspot.com/2015/02/lovely-blogs-liebster-award.html
If you’d like to answer a few questions and invite some other people to join in, it could be fun! But please feel no pressure :). It’s just for fun after all.

Reply
LaDulsaTina 11 Febbraio 2015 - 22:58

Thank you Klara!!! you’re always so kind! 🙂
“FRENCH SEAM IS GOODNESS” is a great statement…I LOVE french seam! Now I have a serger, but before buying it I had loved to use french seam…It’s so professional and good looking!

It’s strange but I wore the dress with old tights and the skirt doesn’t stick at all. I can’t wear it with brand new tights…I tried but I had to change with the old ones. Maybe brand new ones are too electric…I don’t know. But with old tights it works 🙂 Unfortunately I had only 50 cm of silk lining and I had no time to go back to the shop, so I decided to line only the bodice. If I have problem of sticking in the future, I’ll probably sew an underskirt.

Thank you so much for inviting me to Liebster Award! I’ve already received an invitation but I haven’t had time to do it so far. I want to join, so I hope to answer the question in next weeks! 🙂

Reply
Laurel 11 Febbraio 2015 - 23:57

Love love love your dress! I certainly don’t see the mistakes when I look at the pictures. I love the idea of Belladone in wool too, I have that pattern but haven’t made it up yet so I might use that idea as inspiration 🙂

Reply
LaDulsaTina 15 Febbraio 2015 - 20:23

Thank you so much Laurel!! 🙂
So…can’t wait to see your version soon 😉

Reply
Ju 9 Marzo 2015 - 16:12

The dress looks so great especially with the contrast. I am so impressed with your projects that you have taken on as a beginner, I haven’t been as brave as you so you have inspired me to just do it! I might have to get this pattern too. I will follow your blog and look forward to all your future projects! Grazie mille!

Reply
LaDulsaTina 9 Marzo 2015 - 23:23

Thank you so much Ju! I’m so happy to have inspired you…don’t be afraid to start a little bit more difficult projects. I’ve made a lot of mistakes but I’ve learned a lot from them. Try to make projects with always new skills to learn and it will be simpler and simpler 🙂

Reply
Agnes 17 Marzo 2015 - 0:42

I love the contrast lining, especially in the pockets! It makes the dress so much more lively! I am a graeat fan of gingham checks, especially in dresses.
Great job!

Reply
LaDulsaTina 18 Marzo 2015 - 19:13

Thank you very much Agnes! 🙂 I also like contrast lining, I’ll probably use it frequently in next projects. See you soon!

Reply
Ju 1 Aprile 2015 - 23:44

Could you give more detail as to how you lined the dress, especially the back pieces? It all looks very complicated and I couldn’t quite work it out…
you have inspired me to give this dress a go, I bought the pattern today and like you I like to have a lining in my dresses… 🙂

Reply
LaDulsaTina 2 Aprile 2015 - 11:20

Can’t wait to see your version, Ju! 😉 I’m happy to have inspired you in making this beautiful dress 🙂
Ok, I’ll try to explain you what I did in a post, because it’s really too long here and quite difficult because I didn’t take any picture or videos over the work 🙁 Anyway I’ll try to be as clear as I can. I’ll let you know as soon as possible, at the latest in next week, ok?
See you soon! 🙂

Reply
Ju 1 Aprile 2015 - 23:44

Could you give more detail as to how you lined the dress, especially the back pieces? It all looks very complicated and I couldn’t quite work it out…
you have inspired me to give this dress a go, I bought the pattern today and like you I like to have a lining in my dresses… 🙂

Reply
Hilde 14 Aprile 2015 - 11:52

This is beautiful! And I love the contrasting lining. So cute with a pop of color in the pockets! I’ve never heard of Deer&Doe before, but really want to try some of their patterns now!

Reply
LaDulsaTina 14 Aprile 2015 - 15:56

Thank you, Hilde!! I love this dress…probably the best I’ve made so far (despite my mistakes 🙂 ) I’m happy you like it!

Reply
Allison @ The Tall Mama 17 Maggio 2016 - 8:27

This dress is gorgeous! Your lining choice makes it even more special! x Allison

Reply
Ivona 21 Maggio 2016 - 4:04

Hi Martina,

I found your blog through Sasha’s blog – Secondo Piano.

What a cute dress and well executed. I am sewing a checked dress at the moment and also had to recut the sleeve and bodice on one side because I had not matched the checks! It definitely takes more time and effort to work with a patterned fabric.

Cheers,
Ivona

Reply
Deer and Doe – Houndstooth Belladone Dress – gingerella 7 Giugno 2016 - 10:11

[…] twill or something similar, resembling the Deer and Doe photos but nothing grabbed me. Then I saw LaDulsaTina’s version, when searching for a tutorial on how to line the bodice, and decided I wanted black and white […]

Reply
Amanda vs Belladone Dress 15 Ottobre 2017 - 13:12

[…] a gingham one. Ladulsatina has totally inspired […]

Reply
Barbara 25 Marzo 2022 - 15:21

Ciao Martina, che bello questo abito, complimenti!
Mi piacerebbe provare a realizzarlo ma ho un dubbio: questo modello può andar bene anche per chi non ha il ventre esattamente piatto?
Grazie tantissime per la tua risposta.
Barbara

Reply

Leave a Comment