Tilly, Bettine and the Strawberry Thief

Time for a little pattern hacking! Sort of. In a very minor kind of way.

Having tried out the Tilly and the Buttons Bettine dress in awesome skull fabric in my earlier post, I decided it would make the perfect match to my Liberty fabric.

Since I bought the 'Strawberry Thief' print in Blue I had always wanted to make something incredibly basic and simple with it - almost replicating their display picture here:

Photo from Liberty website

In walked Bettine! I absolutely love a boat-neck and so a very straightforward neckline adjustment was made to my pattern to achieve this. Once the new pattern piece was created with a different neckline, it was just a case of tracing off another piece for the facing.

Left original version - right altered version

Trace the neckline for facing piece

When stitching the facing to the bodice piece, I stitched very close to the neckline instead of 1" as on the original pattern.

A further minor pattern adjustment was to omit the 'tulip' shape of the skirt and instead just draft straight down from the curve at the hip.

This is the result!

I actually wanted this to wear with tights/cardigan/boots in winter so gave that a whirl aswell. Here I am in Clark Kent-esque disguise. Unfortunately I've been relegated to flat shoes for ages (ever?) due to a pretty serious knee injury a couple of months ago. (If you look carefully in the last few pics I've done my left leg is hovering about 2mm off the ground heehee) Once again I'm not sure its the most flattering thing I've ever made but it was enjoyable and I feel slightly relieved the idea is now out of my head and created! 

Gotta love this Bettine pattern though it is a winner. Scruffy Badger made one in soft knit jersey and that sounds a great idea for a comfort lover like myself. Surely a 3rd version is not out of the question? ;-)


Feel free to comment and come and say hello on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Bloglovin too :-) xx