PAPMAP part two: Belladone

Part two of PAPMAP and part two of my Deer and Doe haul! So far, it's still going well. Of my initial three patterns this was the one I was least sure about - it's a lovely dress, but I wasn't 100% sure it would be a nice dress on me. However, a combination of having seen several lovely versions of it and knowing it would be an incredibly useful pattern to have pushed me into it.

Having not made a Deer and Doe dress before and so not knowing what their fit is like, I made a toile of the bodice. This is a 42 bodice with a 1 inch FBA (i.e. two inch increase), grading out to a 44 at the waist.

It mostly fits, except the waist darts are too long and there's a bit of excess fabric around the upper chest. Also it could do with being slightly longer in the waist. This was encouraging enough for me to move onto the proper fabric.

This is an Art Gallery fabric I bought from The Splendid Stitch. I'd seen it on the Ray Stitch website in jersey and really wanted it, but it was out of stock, so when I saw the woven version I snapped it up. (Also, cheaper.) The print is a bit loud for my usual style so I wasn't sure what to do with it, but it seemed like a good match for the Belladone, which has nice details but overall is quite a sensible pattern, so I thought they'd balance well together.

This dress didn't give me too much trouble, though I found the back crossover somewhat confusing to sew and did it wrong a couple of times (putting it on confuses the shit out of me every time because I am a bit daft and can't work out what's meant to go where). Also my overlocker decided it had had enough of behaving and tried to eat the dress while I was finishing a seam. GAH. All the edges are finished with bias binding; I had the binding exposed on this version but for any future versions I'll probably sew it inside. There's also a hem facing, which Deer and Doe seem quite fond of, and I don't think it's a bad idea. It certainly made hemming the dress (usually my least favourite thing of all) much less of a pain.

Look at the back! I am so impressed that I did that. 

Since it was a first attempt I didn't change too much except for adding the FBA. I added a bit more fabric to the waist - possibly a smidge too much - and took the darts down a bit from my toile. Once I'd got the dress almost finished I realised the back was gaping, so I put a couple of darts in. This gaping back thing is now basically a universal problem in my woven dresses, and I need to work out what adjustment I have to make to stop that being a thing. Do I need my back pieces to be cut in a smaller size?

My only concern with this dress is that I hate the way it looks with a cardigan over it, and I think that's the neckline. It's just slightly higher than I'm comfortable with. I'd quite like to try lowering it a bit (not a huge amount, just a bit), though I worry that would distort the back. I'll have a go in the autumn, I think.

There are two more Deer and Doe patterns in my immediate future: the Lupin jacket, which actually might work quite well with this dress if I make it in the right colour, and the Centauree, which I have the most ridiculous fabric for and it's all very exciting. I don't understand why I haven't seen much of Deer and Doe on other blogs; I've seen this dress a few times, but otherwise hardly anything. Why? This stuff is amazing. I am excited and eager for more.

Pictured: Eagerness, or something.