Liberty Carline Dress (BHL Anna / Simplicity 1873 hybrid)

Now, I've seen a fair few Liberty Carline print dresses on sewing blogs and, honestly, I have loved every single one. Being a Liberty print though, I had always assumed this fabric would be really expensive and out of my current budget. 

Not so! Minerva had it for £9.99 per metre, and so I used some of my birthday money to buy some. A good decision I think! It's a lovely quality cotton poplin, and the print is so vibrant. I love it.
 
When deciding what to make, I just could not get the Anna bodice out of my head. I think Roisin's beautiful version has stuck with me. I just think it's the most perfect match of pattern and fabric. So I decided to make an Anna bodice with the pleated skirt from Simplicity 1873. It all lined up pretty well - I just matched the bodice and skirt side seams first and only had to move a couple of the pleats slightly, but nothing too taxing or time consuming. 

A Thing to Shake the Heart dress (By Hand London's Anna bodice with Simplicity 1873 skirt in Liberty Carline poplin)

I only bought 2 metres of this beautiful stuff, so I didn't quite have enough to pattern match and I reeeeeally didn't have enough to make the hem facing I wanted. If Minerva had let me buy half metres I would've bought 2.5 (3 would've been way too much). So anyway I had to cut the hem facings on the cross grain (with one of them a little tiny bit off grain). It didn't seem to make a difference and I'm so glad I got to have my nice 3" hem facing! I just love them. Because the facing is a separate cut piece, it's weighty like a deep double fold hem but with no easing in required. What's not to love? 

My lovely hem facing, understitched to help it hang/sit nicely, and catch stitched in place

From the outside. Nice and neat and invisible!

I had intended to use an invisible zip for this dress, but for some reason I had it in my head that the background of this print is Ivory. It really isn't, it's a very yellowy cream colour, so the Ivory invisible zip I had bought looked ridiculous (yes I know it's just the zip pull on show really, but it still bothered me). Luckily I had an ordinary zip in cream in my stash, so I used that and put in a centred zip. 

I also did some more fit work on the Anna bodice, and I'm so glad I have finally fixed some pretty massive fit issues! When I made my earlier versions, I was much less experienced and, while I got so far with my fit work, I had a lot of neckline gaping that I really didn't know how to sort out at the time. I still wear two of my early Annas (here and here) but the neckline bugs me every time.
 
Really, what it boiled down to, was that I needed to raise the shoulder seams by a good 5/8". This is a standard adjustment for me, but I guess I didn't know that yet when I made my first version of the Anna back in the day! So once I had raised the shoulders, lengthened the bodice and redrawn the neckline, the back was perfect and at the front I only had a slight gape to contend with. So I split the wedge I needed to pinch out into two wedges along the front neckline, taped them down on my pattern piece and cut a toile. Imagine my delight when it was a goldilocks fit straight away (juuuuust right). 

Side view

I find it a bit comical how white my legs are in these pictures. I mean, I've got no problem with my skin colour, I quite like being pale! But there's pale and then there's almost whiter than the white wall behind me. Also spot the changing shoes! I wore the green flats with it all day but wanted to see which other shoes would go with it. Conclusion: I need some tan flats, preferably T bar. I'm all about the flats at the moment. 

I kept adding and removing the belt in these pictures too, just to be confusing! 

Anyway, I really love this dress. I wore it all day on Wednesday and blooming loved it. I felt all serene and swishy in it. And every new dress deserves to be danced around the living room in, right? 

Over and out x