LLADYBIRD

One thing that I love so much about the sewing community is the neverending supply of fresh patterns, made by small-beans businesses. I find them soo much better than the offerings from the Big 4 – the style lines are more unique, the instructions are easier to follow, and there tends to be a HELLUVA lot less ease in the finished pieces (ask me about Simplicity’s “close-fitting” dresses with 4″ of bodice ease. No, wait, don’t. I’m getting all ragey just thinking about it).

This is the Bleuet Dress by Deer & Doe, a sweet pattern company based in France. (Actually, Google tells me that Bleuet translates to Blueberry – but I like the French word, it sounds FANCY. Also note that I took 2 years of French in high school and I need Google Translate to tell me the word for blueberry. Bitch pls) (Also, I was just informed that Blueberry only applies to Canadian French, not French French. The things I learn on this blog! :)). Deer & Doe is a fairly new pattern company – the first set of patterns were released only in French, but now they offer English translations and I’ve been ALL UP ON THAT. I should probably also point out that the English translations were done by Anna, which means that they are actually concise and easy to read and understand, as though they were actually written in English to begin with. Nice!

Also, these patterns are ADORABLE. Like, um, why do I not own this? Or this? Or this jacket SWEET JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.

So, I really love this dress. Like, a lot.

I bought this fabric in NY, at one of the random tiny shops in the Garment District (Fabrics for Less? Chic Fabrics? Halp.). I was originally drawn to it because, well, that colorway is pretty fucking awesome. I thought it would look totally ace as a shirtdress. Of course, I didn’t bother to actually check the fabric before buying 3 whole yards of it (I’m going to blame that on being starstruck at the presence of Sonja and Oona, as well as on a total fabric high), but IF I HAD BOTHERED, I would have noticed that the seersuckery-ness of the fabric actually meant that it had LOADS of stretch. Which, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that sort of fabric if it’s your jam or whatever, but I’ve learned my lesson and I tend to stay away from woven fabrics that incorporate a lot of stretch.

That’s part of the reason I delayed cutting into this for soo long. I had the perfect pattern in mind and everything – plus I’ve been hoarding these purple buttons I got at the flea market months ago – but it was cut to my current size, and this fabric has enough stretch the necessitate sizing down. Add that to matching up all those checks (what was I THINKING?) and fugeddaboutit.

This Deer & Doe pattern seemed like the perfect match – the princess seams allowed me to cut the sides on the bias (less plaid-matching, yay!), as well as making it easy to fit as I sewed. I cut the very smallest size, the 34 (ok, I lied, I actually TRACED it. Can you believe that shit?! Hell must have frozen over), and combined with the stretch of the fabric, the dress fit almost perfectly from the get-go. I had to let out a tiny bit of seam allowances at the bust, but other than that – perfect.

This pattern is rated “Advanced,” but I think a very confident beginner could easily tackle it. The instructions are good, there are lots of diagrams, and the pieces are pretty easy to figure out on their own. Make sure you use the right weight fabric, though – mine is a bit too flimsy, as you can see. A shirt dress like this really needs a fabric with a bit of body to give the dress structure – even a quilting cotton would work here.

My line-matching is… ok. I got the front lined up beautifully, but the sides are less than perfect. Somehow, I didn’t think to double check those – I was just excited that the bias on the sides meant that I didn’t have to match them at the princess seams. LOLLLL.

Anyway, this side is worse than the other. Oh well!

I LOVE THE BACK THO. Look at that cute little bow!!! Ack, it’s so sweet!!

You probably noticed that my dress has a placket, while the pattern doesn’t call for one. Actually, it’s a mock-placket 🙂 I had the dress almost entirely assembled – everything but the buttons – and when I put it on, it just looked wrong. I couldn’t figure out why it looked so weird, so I set it aside for a couple of days and considered my options. Eventually, I realized that the stripes matching across the front meant that there was a big ol’ uninterrupted chunk of lines going right down my center. I don’t think this necessarily looks bad across the board – but in this small/busy print, it just seemed unfinished. I considered adding bias tape to the center front, or even rick-rack, but a quick Google of “vintage plaid shirtwaist” gave me my aha moment when I saw all the bias plackets. That’s it!

Since my dress was mostly assembled at that point, I fixed it the cheater way. I cut a bias strip of my plaid, folded the raw edges to the inside, and topstitched that little shit right on top of where the buttons would go. It’s only on the outside layer – the under (where the buttons sit) is still the straight plaid. Considering I can’t wear this unless it’s buttoned all the way up to the collar (my fabric is reeeal flimsy; it droops all sad-like), it’s not really a big deal. And it instantly made the dress look SO MUCH BETTER.

I also omitted the sleeves. I had every intention of adding them, but there was just too much plaid going on. I finished the insides of the arm holes with black self-made bias tape. Easy!

The pattern calls for you to face the hem, but I did not because my fabric was being really obnoxious. In retrospect, I may go back and face it anyway with something non-stretch, like a cotton batiste, because it’s obvious that it needs a little bit of structure, at least where the buttons are.

Also, sorry for the lack of flat shots! It slipped my mind until literally just now, oops! Speaking of taking pictures – I bought a new camera over the weekend! It’s a Canon G12, and I’ve been having a lot of fun learning how to use it! These pictures were taken on my old camera, but you should see some stuffs with the new camera next week 😀

Anyway, I love my finished dress – but next time, I will make it in a firm woven fabric. If I want stretch, I’ll buy some fucking jersey knit.

I guess that’s it. My office gave me a 4 day weekend, so I’m off to go celebrate America and Hot Chicken and sticking it to the man or whatev.

Have a great weekend!

Tags: Bleuet, completed, Deer & Doe, dress, plaid