Make It Yourself! A DIY Fascinator and Kaftan Dress

I made this dress and trimmed a hat, using materials from Spotlights. You can see their professional tutorials on fascinators and hats here and read on below for how I created this myself at home.

Wearing my dress and hat, with Simone Anderson, at the Spotlight Christmas event.

I headed into Spotlight in Wairau, and had awesome service by Hayley and Jo there. The Spotlight team are so knowledgeable and helpful. I did some research around the store, and ended up choosing a pearl studded pink tulle, a plain pink tulle, a straw hat, and pink trimmings. I also got scissors, matching threads, and hot glue gun sticks for the hat.

I glued the chiffon rose ribbon onto the pink ribbon tape then glued it onto the hat brim leaving a 3 cm overlap and tucking under raw ends.

Tip: you can layer ribbons for a pretty and unique result.

The finished result!

Making the Kaftan Dress:

This is a really easy way to sew a dress as it only has two straight seams, which run from under your arms to the ground on each side. First, fold your fabric in half and use any top your own to cut a neck hole in the folded corner, basically like a poncho.

I decided to add a little something-something, and added 35cm tulle to the shoulder seam on each side as a sort of open sleeve. Here’s how to do ruching.

How To Gather Fabric:

Start with a piece of fabric twice as long as you need it to be as it will end up half as long once you have ruched it. Run a row of straight machine stitch in the longest stitch length (eg stitch length 4) 1cm from the edge. Important – do not reverse at the ends as we want them easy to gather. Simply pull one of the thread ends and it will gather up. Smooth the gathers evenly along the length until you reach the desired fullness and length. So easy!