Kate dress by Sew Over It

The Kate dress caught my attention and was the main reason why I bought the Sew Over It Work to Weekend ebook immediately when it came out. I love the mix of modern and vintage. There are many shirtdress patterns available but I haven’t seen anything like this before.

The pattern details

The bodice has darts and a hidden button closure. The pattern has a classic shirt collar and short puffed sleeves. The skirt is wide and has four slits to add a bit extra wow factor to it.

The pattern suits many different kinds of fabrics such as viscose, crepes, cotton lawn or cotton satin. I used dark blue cotton satin which suited this dress very nicely.

The size range is UK 8 to 20, corresponding to bust measurements from 83,5 to 113,5 cm. I made the size 10 that corresponded to my measurements and was very happy with the fit without any adjustments. Yay! I think there is a perfect amount of ease included in the bodice.

Sewing the Kate dress

I liked the instructions that came with the Kate dress pattern. The pdf booklet has beautiful images and a few extra tips that make your sewing easier.

The making of the hidden button placket has made super easy and a lot of thought has been put into the right sewing order of different steps. (Like: Make the buttonholes at this stage. It will be much more difficult after the collar has been inserted.)

All in all, it took one whole day to make the dress and then the next morning to hem it. (I hung the dress on my mannequin to stretch the hem overnight.) There was a lot of hand sewing included in the hemming, but I have finally learned to like hand sewing. It is very relaxing and meditative work and I can listen to a nice podcast or an audiobook while I’m doing it.

The finished Kate dress

I really like this dress a lot. The A-line skirt and the puffed sleeves remind me of 1950s fashions but the hidden button placket and the four slits bring the dress into the 21st century.

The bodice fit is very good. Like I already said, it has the perfect amount of ease that makes it comfortable but doesn’t hide your body completely.

What I’d wish were different?

The dress would be a bit easier to wear during the colder days if the skirt had a lining. Due to the slits, I can’t really wear a slip underneath and the cotton sticks to my pantyhose. However, lining the dress is not a simple matter due to those slits. The lining would have to be sewn to the hem to keep it in place. I still might add the lining at some point to this dress…

I’d also prefer ordinary sleeves with no puffs. I have this vague idea that the puffed sleeves are there to make fitting the sleeves easier. I still think that I will make another kind of sleeves the next time, even if I definitely will want to use the bodice another time!

The cotton satin works nicely, but it seems to collect every single fleck of dust and a loose thread that’s left lying around (and you can guess that those are a-plenty in my household!). The dark colour also shows all the dirt. After wearing this dress for a few days I have learned to trust my lint roller to keep the dress presentable!

Conclusions

I feel very classy in this dress and can warmly recommend Kate dress pattern. Unfortunately, you can’t buy just it but you’ll have to get the whole ebook with five patterns. On the plus side, though, those four other patterns are quite nice, too. I particularly like the Evie top and the Camille jumpsuit. Also, the patterns have a lot of options so you can make much more than just 5 garments with them.

Thank you for reading and a special thanks to my subscribers! Feel free to share this post with your sewing friends! See you soon and happy sewing!

Katja