I present to you my Kaste Dress shirt hack. The pattern is by Named Clothing from their book “Breaking the Pattern.”
First of all, I am obsessed with this shirt. I never make fancy sleeves or things that are overly feminine and flouncy. It just doesn’t feel like me. When I saw this dress (below) though, I immediately bought the book because I needed to make THAT DRESS. Those dramatic sleeves were begging to be flapped and danced in!
Nicole Merritts of Merritts Makes made this dress for the D&H Fabrics Tour
Isn’t that GORGEOUS!?!?!?! So, I’ve been waiting for the day that I had the perfect fabric to make my own. When I saw the Workroom Social fabric release I IMMEDIATELY bought myself a yard of the “Wild” print and anticipated its arrival. I only had a yard. ONE yard of that gorgeous print! It took some really tricky cutting but I was able to make a shirt version of this dress out of that one yard. I still have plans to make the full dress, but for now I have all the drama in a shirt. Even better, a shirt in the coolest print and color way!
To make this dress, which has a back zip closure into a shirt, I had to decide how I was going to get in and out of it. The Workroom Social fabric is made of rayon, which feels dreamy and is so easy to sew, but has no stretch. I needed a big enough opening for my head to get through and then of course my body. So here is what I did:
Well, first I had to trace all the pieces of the pattern (ugh–price of having a full book of patterns I guess!). I did a size 3 even though my measurements had my hips in a smaller size. I had to go with my bust measurement because 1. it wasn’t going to go past my hips anyway 2. I needed the darts to fit with my bust. It was perfect. It does flare slightly at the hip though which tells me I will need to take it in from the hip down when I do a full-length version. My measurements are B: 35.5in W: 28in H: 35.5
Here is the hack: I installed a zipper on the side. I didn’t bother to do an invisible zipper because I knew the sleeves completely covered it. I didn’t add any extra seam allowance to the side panels either. I serged the edges and then folded them under before stitching down the zipper sides.
This may not be the prettiest way to have stitched this up (I could’ve probably incorporated the facing into this hack so it was attached right sides together and then the seam was hidden–actually that is what I would recommend!!). I hadn’t thought about how my head had to get through that hole beforehand, and I’d stitched the whole thing together. Oops. So I unstitched down the center back seam and just folded it under and topstitched (as you can painfully see). I honestly didn’t think of the facing solution until right now.
Learn from my mistake;) Anyway, I added a snap and called it good.
See you can’t even see that side zip!
And there is that snap closure that I’m sure only I will be thinking about not being perfect.. (maybe fixing that soon….).
Pictured with my newly sewn Sasha Trousers by Closet Case Patterns in stretch twill from JoAnn Fabrics.
Stop it. Look at that freaking wing span! I need to be tied up in a harness and flown across a stage! Where can I do that? Why am I not a rockstar? (Because my super power is sewing not singing….)
If for some reason you are here without having first been to my Instagram, then please go check out the dance that Amy Nicole and I did together to celebrate this awesome fabric! We thought it would be fun to combine her #handmadehappydance and my #thehandmadehustle by filming dances to the same song and editing them together. It was really fun to have this secret project together and I look forward to doing it with more people! It is crazy to me to think that I can make a dance video with someone I’ve never met, who lives in another state. Go check it out!