Maker notes: Over the moon Bella dress
A DIY & secondhand wedding guest outfit
Quite smitten with this dress I sewed up to wear to my good friends’ London wedding. The pattern is the Lizzy Design Studio Bella dress and the fabric is deadstock viscose from Belgarian Fabrics. I couldn’t unthink this combination, especially since my friends’ cat is called Moon - too perfect.
The pattern was fast and simple to sew considering how fancy the final gown feels. It’s just two pattern pieces, a bit of gathering, and a lot of narrow hemming. No fit adjustments at all, I cut a 38/M which is a little over my measurements and it’s nice and comfy with the bias cut’s give.
The instructions looked totally fine but I did a few things my own way:
Added a back waistline seam, intersecting the centres of the fisheye darts, mainly due to fabric scarcity (I had a 2.5m cut and this made it just fit)
Hemmed things in a different order, and narrow-hemmed the neckline instead of using bias tape (it’s a straight line)
Ran the side invisible zip right up to the armhole for more ease getting in and out
Hem needed a lot of straightening out, I guess due to all the grainlines at play
I made a matching hair accessory from the scraps. It’s just a scrunchie with a shaped tail tied to it. Might have been upstaged when I tried it on my very beautiful new cat, Clementine, though.
I wore it with a linen wrap shirt topper, hot pink shoes and a beaded bag all found secondhand. My final me-made contribution to the wedding was all the graphic design - invitations, seating plan, placenames etc - which I illustrated! Lovely to see it all come together in the beautiful venue.
You look lovely! And Clementine might just have stole the show. I saw someone make a plain version of this top with hook and eyes across the neckline/shoulder opening and I can't stop thinking about it - might have to add it to the queue :)