The Liliana Dress and Blouse is a beautifully designed dress and blouse sewing pattern with soft, romantic details and multiple variations to try. In this review of the Liliana Dress and Blouse by Milaonni Patterns, I’ll be sharing the four versions I’ve made, my thoughts on the pattern and any modifications I made.
Another pattern I love by Milaonni Patterns is the Josephina Top and Dress – I’ve made 5 versions! – and you can read my full review here.
The Pattern
The pattern is the Liliana Dress and Blouse by Milaonni Patterns and is a romantic dress inspired by historic nightwear with feminine details like ruffles at the neckline and sleeves and gathering in the bodice. The bodice shaping is formed by elastic channels at the waist and underbust which can be customized depending on your fit preference. The neckline is elasticated and adjustable with a keyhole opening at the center. The Liliana pattern includes a midi length dress or blouse view, three different sleeve lengths, and three different cup sizes. You can find more details about sizing, fabric suggestions and requirements on their website.
The Liliana Dress and Blouse was recently updated (as of March 2026) and my versions were all made using the updated pattern. I love the versatility of this pattern and the variations that can be dreamt up.
The Instructions
Like other patterns I have made by Milaonni Patterns, the instructions are very detailed and thorough. They include a table of contents, helpful tips on possible adjustments, choosing the right fabric, different variations you can try, hyperlinks to take you straight to a certain section, and clear illustrations to get you through all the steps.
Before you even get to the sewing steps, there are 19 informational pages. For beginner sewists these pages are a valuable learning resource and give you the tools to make a beautifully finished garment. For more advanced sewists, you may find yourself skipping through these pages, but remain a great reference for any fit adjustments you want to make.
The Fit
On the size chart, I’m in between size 4 and 6 for my bust measurement (34″) and I know I can comfortably wear either size since I’ve made both in other Milaonni Patterns that I’ve made. With this style of dress, and knowing that the fit is pretty adjustable because of the elastic, I decided to size down for less overall ease in the bodice.
A potential fit area you might want to consider, is the underarm depth. Sizing down does make the underarm fit a little more snug, and I do notice that on me, but spacing out the gathers along the shoulders or loosening the elastic a bit can help give more ease there.
I love that the Liliana Dress does not have a waist seam because this makes fitting and modifications a lot easier. It also helps if you’re using a patterned fabric, like stripes or plaid, because you don’t have to worry about pattern matching at the waist. The volume in the skirt is nicely balanced and I don’t feel like there’s too much or too little. However, there are instructions included for increasing the fullness of the skirt at the hips if that is an area you want to adjust.
Fabric can make a difference in fit and I’ve found that the Liliana Dress and Top I made in linen feel a little big because of the nature of how linen drapes. I notice it most in the neckline and the bodice, which feels more billowy.
How does the Liliana Dress compare to the Silversaga Eleonora Dress?
If you’ve heard of Silversaga Patterns then you have probably seen the Eleonora Dress and may wonder how it compares to the Milaonni Lilliana Dress. At first glance, the Liliana Dress and the Eleonora Dress are very similar, and overall they are, but there are a few differences you might want to know about if you’re deciding between the two patterns.
You can see more pictures of my Eleonora Dress in my Silversaga Patterns review or my dyeing fabric with tea tutorial.
Blouse Version – Maybe the most obvious difference is that the Liliana pattern comes with a blouse/top version. You could try a Eleonora top hack, which actually I have tried before, but it is a little more involved since you have to lengthen the bodice piece and come up with the hem shape yourself. On the Liliana Blouse, the work is already done for you.
Bodice Fit – You can probably tell right away in the photos above, that the Eleonora (white floral) neckline is deeper than the Liliana neckline. It is possible to raise the neckline of the Eleonora, but trickier since the ruffle and elastic channel are built into the top of the bodice, but there are no instructions included to do this. The Liliana does have instructions, although brief, on raising or lowering the neckline. There is also one more cup size offered in the Liliana pattern (E-F).
Both the Eleonora and Liliana have elastic channel options at the underbust and waist, but the Eleonora has a shirred waist option (View C). The Eleonora waist channel is built into the bodice and skirt seam, which makes it a little harder to adjust, while the Liliana waist channel is easily adjusted by moving the channel up or down to your preference.
Sleeve Lengths – There are two sleeve lengths included in the Eleonora pattern, but three different sleeve lengths, and a flutter sleeve option, in the Liliana pattern. You can adjust the sleeve length on the Eleonora but it’s nice to have four options to choose from in the Liliana.
Skirt Fullness – Since the Eleonora skirt panels, four of them, are gathered and sewn to the bottom of the bodice separately, this does give it a lot more volume. You can try what a lot of sewists do and only use two panels at the full width of the fabric. The Lililana skirt is less full, but still has a good amount of volume. The skirt and bodice is all one piece which makes cutting out a bit quicker, but takes some adjustments if you want to add fullness to the skirt (there are instructions included for this).
Construction – This is where most of the differences between the two patterns make their appearance. Since the Liliana bodice and skirt are all one piece, the waist and underbust channels are pinned and sewn on separately. This makes moving them to adjust to your fit preferences fairly easy. The waist channel on the Liliana is not adjustable while the Eleonora has elasticated ties at the waist. The Eleonora waist channel is made using the seam allowance when sewing the skirt panels to the bodice and the opening for the ties is made using buttonholes. The same goes for the neckline ties – buttonholes are used on the Eleonora, but the Liliana uses a keyhole opening to make a channel for the elasticated ties. This makes the Liliana a little easier to sew because you don’t have to worry about sewing buttonholes.
The neckline ruffles of the Eleonora and Liliana look identical, but the process is totally different. The neckline ruffle on the Liliana is a separate pattern piece that is sewn onto the top of the bodice. You sew the right side of the ruffle to the wrong side of the bodice and then fold it over to the right side (see photos below). This is an easier method, but does add some bulk at the seam, especially in a fabric like linen. The ruffle on the Eleonora is “grown on”, meaning you just fold down the top of the bodice to the wrong side to form the ruffle and elastic channel.
Overall, both patterns are beautifully designed and you can’t go wrong with either one (or try both!). I do think that the Liliana Dress and Blouse has more versatility which is evident in the three different versions I made, but with a little bit of effort you can make similar modifications on the Eleonora Dress.
Fabric
The recommended fabrics for the Liliana Dress and Blouse is floaty lightweight (around 2-5 oz) fabrics like cotton, linen or blends.
Version 1
For my first Liliana Dress I used a lightweight Japanese cotton lawn from Saltlake Sewciety which I think is perfect fabric for this dress. It’s soft and floaty, gathers beautifully, and holds a press really well. I’ve used this fabric before for my green floral Josephina Dress, another lovely pattern by Milaonni Patterns. I made a size 4 with the short sleeve length and didn’t make any alterations to the fit. This is probably my favorite fabric choice out of the three!
Version 2
I immediately cut a top version after making a dress and used a gorgeous Merchant & Mills linen from Saltlake Sewciety. I made a size 4 with the flutter sleeves option, which is easily done by just omitting the elastic and doing a smaller hem (I did 3/8″ hem folded twice). The neckline ruffle is slightly narrower because I was short on fabric, but it still works. I also shortened the keyhole length by about half which I show how to do in the Modifications section further down.
This linen was a tiny bit harder to work with than cotton and it made the ruffles sort of chunky feeling. Still very happy with how this top turned out! Grading the seam allowance in the neckline would have helped reduce bulk, if I had thought of it (I noticed later that this is recommend in the instructions for midweight fabrics). I also reduced the neckline elastic length to bring the neckline a little higher since without the underbust or waist elastic to hold it up, the neckline felt like it was being pulled down.
Version 3
For my third version of the Liliana, I made another dress but with just the waist elastic and flutter sleeves. I used a lightweight linen in this beautiful brownish rose color from Fluid + Drape. *affiliate link (you can use code ‘bethanylynnemakes’ for 15% off your order) This linen, since it was a lighter weight, was easy to work with and makes this dress so floaty.
Without the underbust elastic, it does have more volume in the bodice and the nature of linen adds to the fullness as well. This doesn’t bother me, but it’s just something to keep in mind when making this variation or when picking fabric. Like my top version, I needed to shorten the neckline elastic to raise the neckline and to help hold up the weight of the dress. This version might just be my favorite! I love how flowy it is and this more simple variation gives it a more of everyday feel.
Version 4
For my fourth version, I made a patchwork Liliana! I kept the dress construction simple by omitting all the elastic channels, leaving off the neckline ruffle and choosing the flutter sleeve option. You can read about the whole process over at my How to Make a Patchwork Dress blogpost.
Modifications
The only main modification I made was to shorten the keyhole opening since it’s just a little too deep for my preference. To do this, I folded the keyhole facing pattern piece to the length I wanted, keeping in mind that there’s about 1/2″ seam allowance at the bottom edge. I then retraced the bottom shape of the pattern piece and drew in the lines as instructed.
The same steps in the instructions apply, but the facing is just shorter!
Final Thoughts
In summary, I’m a big fan of the Liliana Dress and Blouse! Honestly, its hard to come up with more words because I’ve pretty much said it all 🙂 This dress, or top, pattern is a fun, straightforward sew and feels so flattering to wear. Besides the romantic style of this dress, my favorite part has to be how versatile this pattern is, and I can see myself trying out different versions in the future. Hope that my notes helped you out or inspired you to trying sewing a Liliana for yourself!
