Date Night Dress

This weekend my husband graduated from Melbourne University with an MBA. It was a big occasion for our little family (very proud!!). Anyhow, in typical fashion for me, I decided on Monday that I needed a new dress for the occasion. Plenty of time, yes! Except I then spent the next three days deliberating over what to sew………not enough time to order a Saltspring dress pattern, not enough time to order AMH rayon challis, too cold for a dress etc etc. In the end I ordered April Rhodes’ Date Night Dress pattern, to hell with the weather forecast! I have so loved some of the other versions of this dress, particularly Ashley’s, Abbey’s, Caroline’s and Meredith’s. So, here is my version, sewn up in two evenings.

UPDATE: I have re-loaded the photos for this post with the dress shortened. The extra length on the dress was bothering me and like a good haircut it feels much fresher!

The fabric is a lovely rayon from my favourite local haunt Joy’s Fabric Warehouse. I was a little intimidated by the rayon thinking it might be difficult to sew with but in actual fact it was lovely and very well behaved.

I sewed a medium with an added 10cms onto the hem. I was wary that the dress might be quite short on me, as per Rae’s Staple Dress (a pattern also by April). Looking at the photos now, ~~I will definitely shorten it for summer~~ (DONE!). Next time I would sew a small in the bodice and grade out to a medium in the skirt. I will be sewing up the slip pattern that comes with the dress in white voile, but I ran out of time to sew it for the graduation.