Gabberdashery's Kate Dress - Maxi hack

Hello everyone,

I come to you today a little smarter than usual as I all dressed up for a wedding in my Simple Sew Kate dress – a maxi dress version!

I love this dress – I’ve wanted to try the Kate dress for ages and so pleased I finally got round to it. I used this gorgeous red floral cotton jersey from FC fabrics – it’s such a stunning fabric – really soft and a beautiful drape.

By the way if you want the tutorial for this beautiful pattern then Sweet Sew by Sally did one here.

Hobbes saw it too!! 😉

Thanks to my hubby for these great pictures in my parens bedroom – I had to stand on their bed to show off their amazing new wallpaper!!

The pattern is really straight forward apart from one part – attaching the yoke to the waistband – that part had me saying a few choice words as I tried it over and over again and each time ended up with a little pleat in some place! After the 5/6… maybe 7th try I decided I liked the pleat and that it is a ‘meant detail’ so if you look close you will see it and remember, it’s meant to be there! 😉

Other than that it was an an extremely Simple (geddit?!) Sew!! It took about 3 hours and the whole process is really straight forward. I have to admit that due to lack of time I still haven’t hemmed the sleeves or skirt, but with jersey that often happens with me! I did however topstitch around the neckline with a twin needle to hold the facing in place after this photoshoot as I realised it was being rather naughty and slipping a bit.

The back ties are my favourite feature of this dress!

To make the skirt a maxi length I just added on 50cm to the front and back of the skirt – best to measure this from waist to floor on yourself.

Right I’m off to a wedding in this exact dress and it’s perfect for this occasion on a lovely rare sunny day, also it means I can wear nice comfortable flat shoes as no one knows what is hiding under a maxi dress- yay!