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Day & Night Dress Challenge [Cashmerette Turner & Butterick 6415]

Hello friends!

I’m the last stop on the blog tour for the Day and Night Dress Challenge, hosted by Elizabeth of Elizabeth Made This!

If you’re unaware of this sewing challenge, here are the details.  There’s still plenty of time for you to join and be in the running for some awesome prizes!  Check out Elizabeth’s blog for the full details and lots of inspiration!

The challenge is to make 2 dresses for yourself:

  1. A dress with a day look: This can be anything!  Shirtdresses, knit dresses, sweater dresses, wrap dresses, the sky is the limit.  Sew up a dress that suits your life and expresses your own sense of style.  I want to see color, pattern, and texture here.
  2. A dress with a night look:  Night look dresses should be black, and they can be as fancy or as simple as you choose.  Think about a dress that could go to the opera or a cocktail party or anywhere else where you need to look effortlessly chic and sharp.  The fabric that you choose for your dress should be overwhelmingly black.  Black fabric with metallic threads are great, and prints are okay if from a distance, they read black.  While your night look dresses should be black, feel free to add any accessories or other pieces in different colors to complete your look.

Dresses are to be made during the time of the challenge (January 8th-28th 2017 for the community challenge).  This is a contest for women’s garments only.

For my “day” dress, I chose the Cashmerette Turner Dress.  I’ve made this pattern a few times already, both as a pattern tester and for myself, as well as one I made for my MIL for Christmas (which I had to grade down, which was so different than how I usually re-size patterns!).  The Turner Dress is my go-to knit pattern dress this winter.  It’s super fast to make and super easy to wear and I’m rather partial to the long sleeve view right now.  Besides my at-home uniform of leggings and long sleeved tees this winter, I’ve been keeping warm wearing my knit dresses and tights.  Besides…. secret pajamas!

I chose this beautiful charcoal and grey damask poly/rayon double knit from Cali Fabrics for this dress.  It’s a heavier weight knit and almost like a sweater knit and has enough stretch and drape for the Turner.  Greys and blacks aren’t usually my thing unless they’re mixed with some colors, but I saw this fabric and loved it, plus I thought it would be a very versatile dress.  The bodice is lined with a heathered maroon cotton jersey from Mood that I had in my stash.

There’s not a whole lot of difference between this dress and the way I made my navy Turner dress.  No pattern alterations other than adding length to the skirt and grading between sizes for B-W-H.

And now for my Night look!

I dug into my stash and pulled out this black Anna Sui lace (bought from Fabric Mart a while back) that I’ve been hoarding.  My original plan for this lace was to use it as an overlay over some pink cotton sateen, but when this challenge came up, I wanted to use it, so I went with classic black look.  The result was a nice little cocktail dress.

Source: Butterick Patterns

I used Butterick 6415 for this dress in View C, with all over lace.  I did the following pattern adjustments:  graded up, full bicep adjustment, swayback adjustment, adjusted princess seams to fit, and added about 2″ to the skirt length.  I used black bridal satin from Cali Fabrics for the underlay.

This dress is fully lined with ivory/black polka dot Japanese crepe de chine poly lining from Cali Fabrics (out of stock).  It’s seriously one of the best linings I’ve ever used and I previously used it to line my red raincoat.  The pattern has you use interfacing for the bodice, but I opted to sew boning into the princess seams and side seams instead.

I used French seams for all of the layers of fabric for this dress, which took me substantially longer to finish then I had planned, but it was definitely worth it.  The neckline and sleeve hems have self-fabric binding on them, which I really like the look of.  That binding would also look nice on the skirt hem.

Instead of a contrast bodice overlay, this pattern has the yoke connected to the bodice.  As they’re sewn together in that matter and the bindings are sewn on the neckline and sleeve hem before attaching the yoke to the main part of the bodice, it was hard to figure out exactly where the bateau neckline would end up hitting.  I would have probably dropped it down about a 1/2 inch and may still do so.

I’m really happy with how this dress turned out.  It’s appropriate for many events and it’s really nice to have something like this hanging in my closet.

Day and Night Dress Challenge  Blog Tour:

Sunday, Jan 8th: Elizabeth of Elizabeth Made This, Brittany of Brittany J Jones

Monday, Jan 9th:  Maria of How Good is That?,  Tonya of Sew So Petite

Tuesday, Jan 10th: Je’Tua of Robertswife, Meg of Cookin’ and Craftin’, Melanie of Its Melanie Darling

Wednesday, Jan 11th:  Linda of Elle Gee Makes, Tee of Maggie Elaine

Thursday, Jan 12th: Bianca of Thanks I Made Them, Daniela of On the Cutting Floor

Friday, Jan 13th:  Melissa of Mahlicadesigns, Rachel of Sew Redy, Renata of Runnningnstyle, Sonja of Sewing ala Carte

Saturday, Jan 14th: Doja of Elewa blog, Judith of Judith Dee’s World, Tanya of Mrs. Hughes

 

Happy Sewing!

Day Look

  • Dress:  Cashmerette Turner in charcoal/grey damask poly/rayon double knit, made by me
  • Belt:  Kohl’s
  • Shoes:  Bass Weejuns
  • Earrings:  Gift

Night Look

  • Dress:  Butterick 6415 in Anna Sui lace overlay and black bridal satin, made by me
  • Shoes:  Stuart Weitzman Gigiritz
  • Earrings & Bracelet:  JCPenney

Comments

  1. I seriously love that lace one. I’m getting ready to make this same one myself for a wedding in two weeks (yikes, that’s not nearly enough time for me!) and that’s how I found this page. It looks stunning on you and I hope I can do mine justice. Would you recommend using any kind of stretch lace or stick with the standard kind?

    • Thanks, Teresa! Good luck with your plans. I’m not too familiar with stretch laces, so I can’t recommend one. It stretch lace would make the dress more comfortable, but I’m unsure how it would work with a zipper.

  2. Both dresses are lovely, but my jaw dropped when I saw the back view of that Butterick–WOW! What a wonderful use of a special lace fabric! And thanks for the tip about the lining fabric at Cali; it’s hard to know which poly linings will feel nice against the skin, but I’ll definitely be checking for the type you listed from now on. =)

  3. Tania! You look great in both dresses. The LBD with the lace is my favourite! I need one too!

  4. You really do make such beautiful garments. I love the fabric on your Turner but the Butterick dress has stolen my heart. It is fabulous. Looking brilliant and usual and i love those red shoes. Xx

  6. I’m here saying that I don’t recall ever seeing dark colours from Tanya yet! LOL. But seriously though, both of these are FABULOUS Tans!!! Especially your night dress? That’s simply gorgeous and such an awesome wardrobe make to have for any kind of dressy occasion.

  7. Great makes. You’ve picked up some lovely fabrics and patterns to make two unique dresses. And last but not least: The lining of the dresses is so much fun and is your little secret.

  8. I love your lace dress so much! It is so delicate and you look amazing on it.

  9. Tanya they’re both beautiful. The lace dress absolutely wins my heart. It’s beautiful lace to begin with and it looks spectacular in this style. That open back is stunning. I hope you find many occasions to enjoy this dress! And the Turner dress just has a real easy elegance and looks great in this fabric. I so agree about the knit dresses and leggings–minus the couple of below zero days, that uniform is the way to go in winter! Also, I’ve been ogling these jacquard kind of knits for a while, and I just need to buckle down and order some swatches! Thank you again for all of your hard work in this challenge! I’m so glad you could do it!

    • Thanks, Elizabeth! It was really a challenge for me to sew a black dress, but it is something every girl that loves dresses should have in her closet. You should definitely order some damask/jacquard swatches. This one is so lovely and warm. 🙂 Thanks again for inviting me to participate in this challenge. I can’t wait to see the community dresses.

  10. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again! Your night dress with that gorgeous lace is everything! Firstly you look BEAUTIFUL making your dresses look beautiful too! And you wear them both so well! Your day dress says “I don’t care if it’s winter, I’m allowed to look fabulous” and girl you look fabulous!

  11. Beautiful work as always Tanya. The camera captured your lovely and whimsical smile. WTG!!

  12. Wow, Tanya, these are both great! The night dress is so classy and the fit is great. Ha ha, I was surprised at the color of your day dress (I’m so used to seeing you in jewel tones and bright colors!), but I totally see why you bought it- the texture is awesome!!

  13. I checked out your fabric on the gray one and it is on sale. I just love it. As for your lace dress-it’s gorgeous. It was really worth it to put all the extra effort into. You have an eye for fabrics and details that is unmatched.

    • Thank you so much, Bonnie! That grey fabric is so nice and would work well for so many things! It’s been taking me longer to finish dresses lately, but the extra work is worth it for garments that you want to wear for many years. 🙂

    • Thanks, Kelly! I only knew a few of the bloggers, but it was great to find some new blogs to follow. It’s amazing how large the sewing community is. 🙂 I could definitely see you wearing each of these styles!

  15. Wow Tanya! I just cannot think of a good enough superlative to describe your Day & Night dresses. I’m completely smitten with them both, and you look effortlessly glamorous in both!

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Mrs. Hughes: A retro inspired, vintage garment sewing and plus-size dressmaking blog by Tanya Maile Hughes.