Halter Neck Dress Without a Pattern: Sewing the Dress

October 10, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Halter Neck Dress Without a Pattern: Sewing the Dress

This post is a little bit overdue!

Back in the summer when the weather was warm (sigh!) I made this.

I’d seen a dress on Pinterest that I rather liked. Actually I saw dozens I liked, but this was the one I decided to have a go at making!

My vintage style dresses turned out very well, so I decided to use the same style and a similar method to make a halter neck dress.

I’d never made a dress like this before, so it was fun to try something new! I also wanted an excuse to try out the printables from my ebook Designing and Making a Dress From Scratch.

I wrote a post about designing the dress here, and another about drafting the pattern pieces here. And you can find out about the ebook here!

Once the dress is designed and the pattern pieces are made and cut out, you’re ready to get sewing!

Sewing the Dress Together

The steps for this dress are in a slightly different order than for the other dresses I’d made. I was actually very thankful that I’d worked out the steps first as it saved me quite a lot of time with the unpicker!

1. Pin the darts in one of the bodice sections. Hold it up against yourself to double check that they are in the right place (hopefully you did this when you drafting the pattern pieces!). Pin the darts on the other bodice piece and the bodice lining. Sew the darts. If you haven’t sewn darts before (or if you have but it’s been a while!) there’s a more detailed tutorial here.

2. Pin the side seams of the bodice. Put the bodice around yourself to check that it fits. The centre front edges should meet in the middle. If you need to adjust the side seams, do so, then sew them. Trim the seams and press them open.

3. Make the straps. Take one of the strap sections and fold it in half lengthways. Crease it with your finger, then open it out. Fold one of the long edges into the centre.

Fold the other edge into the centre.

Fold the strap in half so that the raw edges are enclosed and pin. Sew along the open edge.

In the interest of keeping things symmetrical, you might like to sew down the other long edge too.

Fold one of the short edges inwards. Pin, then sew.

4. Pin the straps to the bodice. Try the bodice on again to work out where the straps need to go. They’ll need to be just in front of your armpit, in a similar to place to the straps of your underwear. Pin the straps to the bodice so that the raw edges are together and the strap is downwards. The straps will need to be on the wonk a little bit.

5. Pin the lining to the bodice at the top edge with the right sides together. Sew the lining and the bodice together along the top seam. Trim and clip seams and turn it the correct way out. Run the iron over the seam.

5. Sew the button bands to the bodice. To make the button bands, take one of them and fold it half lengthways. Open it out, then fold the raw edges into the centre. Pin it to the bodice centre edge so that the right sides are together. Sew, keeping close to the fold. Fold the button band around the raw edge of the bodice centre so that the raw edges are enclosed. Pin then sew, keeping close to the open edge.

6. Make the button holes in the button band on the right hand side. Mark with pins to show where you want them to be. Don’t forget that you’ll need a seam allowance at the bottom of the bodice! The easiest way to sew the button holes is with an button hole attachment on your sewing machine. If you don’t have one, you could try one of these methods here.

7. Position the buttons using the button holes as a guide and sew them onto the bodice. Do the buttons up.

8. Sew the skirt sections together. Take 2 of the skirt pieces. Check where the grain is if it’s not obvious! Ideally you want the grain running up and down the centre seam. Do the same with the other 2 pieces. It might be an idea to mark the centre seams with a pin.

You should now have 2 half circles. Pin the side seams and check the skirt against the bodice. You need the waist to be the same size on both the skirt and bodice or you’ll run into problems when you sew them together! Sew the side seams. Trim the seams and press. Now repeat with the lining.

9. Sew the skirt and the lining to the bodice. Pin the skirt to the bodice so that the bodice is inside the skirt, the right sides are together and the waist of the skirt and the bodice are aligned. Check that the centre of the skirt is matched up with the centre of the buttons. Ideally the side seams should match too, but it will be less noticeable if they don’t.

Now pop the lining inside the bodice so that the wrong sides are together. Pin the whole thing together.

This is a bit fiddly! You might find it helpful to pin the skirt to the bodice before sorting out the lining.

Try it on and check that the waist is in the right place. If it is, trim the seam and press.

10. Finish the hem of the skirt and the lining with bias binding. Unroll some of the bias binding and open it out. Pin one end to the raw edge of the hem so that the right sides are together. Sew, keeping close to the fold. When you get all the way round, leave a couple of extra cm so that it overlaps. Sew to catch the end.

Fold the bias binding over so that it’s on the wrong side of the fabric. Press the seam, then sew the open edge of the bias binding.

Trim away any stray threads and run the iron over it once more. Now your dress is ready to wear!

Christmas Embroidery Project With a Free Pattern!

September 28, 2018 · 5 Comments

Christmas Embroidery Project

Although I love Christmas and making things for Christmas, over the last few years I’ve given up on the idea of making masses of stuff specifically for Christmas.

It’s just too busy! And it has a habit of sneaking up on me. I know the date never changes, but by the time the Season of Birthdays is over (my boys’ birthdays are all in the autumn, in the space of 2 months!), we’re halfway through November. By the time I’ve got my act together, it’s December, there’s Nativity plays, shopping, present wrapping, baking and everybody’s tired!

Having a little Christmas embroidery project is a nice thing. It’s something you can pick up when you have a few minutes. You can work on it in the evenings without people complaining that they can’t hear the telly over the sewing machine! And if it’s a little thing, it’s going to be achievable and you’ll feel pleased when you’ve finished it. With a longer project, if you don’t finish it by Christmas it’s just going to end up in the UFO pile and you’ll feel annoyed with yourself (I do!).

So I’ve got a little Christmas embroidery project for you!

You can download the pattern here.

And here are the instructions!

Christmas Embroidery Project Instructions

1. Transfer the design to your fabric. There are a number of ways of doing this. The easiest way is to use dressmakers’ carbon paper (affiliate link). You could also use a light box (you can make one yourself using your phone and a plastic box), or you could try printing directly onto the fabric using your printer. If you do this, it’s best to tape the fabric to a piece of card first.

2. Embroider the letters. Start off by sewing them all in backstitch. To get the calligraphy effect, identify the bits of the letters that would be downstrokes if you’d written them. Add an extra line of backstitch to those bits.

3. Now sew the tree. Work each line in backstitch. Then go back and add the leaves.

4. It’s up to you how you’d like to do the star! I sewed around the edge in backstitch then added some French knots to the centre. You might like to try leaf stitch or satin stitch.

To finish it off, wash it in warm water and washing up liquid. Rinse it, then let it dry flat. Iron it on the reverse. Then decide what you’d like to do with it. You could put it in a frame or you might prefer to display it in an embroidery hoop.

Christmas Embroidery Hoop

September 22, 2018 · 2 Comments

Christmas Embroidery Hoop

Last month I was invited to contribute to a series of posts on All Free Sewing for National Sewing Month.

One of the suggestions was sewing for Christmas and, as it had been a long time since I’d made anything Christmassy, I decided to hatch some Christmas themed embroidery.

I’ve recently jumped on the handlettering band wagon. If you haven’t tried it, it’s a lot of fun! It doesn’t matter if you’re not arty or if your handwriting is normally not very nice. Mine’s dreadful and I did not do well in my Art GCSE.

I was given this book as a birthday present, and I’d recommend it if you want to give handlettering a try (this is an affiliate link)! There are step by step instructions and space in the book to try them out. Even if your handwriting normally looks like a spider rolled in ink then ran across the page, with a little bit of practice you’ll be handlettering everything beautifully. The lady who wrote the book also has a blog here, which I discovered before the book.

Anyway, fuelling my love for my new hobby, I had an idea for making a little Christmas embroidery hoop with the word joy embroidered inside a garland.

I was very pleased with the results! Actually I was so happy with how it turned out I made 2 more with the words love and peace.

The Christmas embroidery hoop was easy to do and it came together quite quickly. Most of the embroidery is worked in back stitch The leaves are lazy daisies and the berries are seed beads. If you didn’t have any beads, you could sew French knots instead.

The back of the hoop is finished with a piece of felt.

You can find the tutorial here. There’s a free pattern for the embroidery if you want it, but the tutorial includes instructions for drawing the designs yourself if you prefer.

They’re small enough to hang on your Christmas tree, but you could hang them wherever you like! I’ve got plans to hang mine in the window of the front room.

If you want to make one but you don’t want to faff about finding the stuff to make it, or if you know somebody who would like one, I have some kits for sale on Etsy.

If you like free embroidery projects, I have another Christmas one here!

Halter Neck Dress Without a Pattern: Drafting the Pattern

September 3, 2018 · 2 Comments

Halter Neck Dress Without a Pattern: Drafting the Pattern

Having a wardrobe full of clothes that are too big has been the perfect excuse to make new things for myself!

When the weather’s warm enough, I love my vintage style dresses. It’s not easy to find these in the shops, so the obvious answer is to make my own.

I successfully turned my cherry blossom dress into a sundress, and having seen a halter neck dress on Pinterest that I rather liked, I decided to have a go at making one, using the cherry blossom dress as a starting point.

To help with designing the dress, I used the printables from my newest ebook, Designing and Making a Dress From Scratch. You can find out more about the ebook here.

The printables helped me to collect ideas, design the dress and work out how I was going to make it, step by step.

I wrote a post about designing a halter neck dress using the ebook’s printables which you can read here.

Now that I’ve worked it all out, the next step is to make the pattern pieces!

If you haven’t drafted pattern pieces before, it might seem daunting, but it’s perfectly possible, especially if you’ve made clothes for yourself before from patterns.

Making things from patterns will have given you an idea of how the pieces ought to look.

Even if you haven’t don’t worry, because in the rest of the post I’m going to show you how to draft the pieces for a halter neck dress.

Drafting Pattern Pieces For a Halter Neck Dress

You Will Need

Tape measure
Pencil
Big bits of paper (pattern paper is ideal. This is an affiliate link).
Long ruler
Scissors
Pins
A French curve is useful, but you could use a plate instead.

Taking Measurements

For detailed instructions about taking measurements, you might like to read this post here.

Basically, don’t measure yourself over a bulky jumper, try to make sure that the tape measure is straight and don’t pull it too tight!

You will need to measure:
Across your collar bone
From one shoulder to the other
Chest under your armpits
Bust
Waist, where the tape measure rests comfortably.
From the top of your shoulder to your waist
From the top of your shoulder to under your armpit.
The top of your shoulder to where you took your bust measurement.
The top of your shoulder to where you want the top of the dress to be.
Your waist to just below your knee.

Drafting the Bodice

I’ve used the same strategy here as I did for the vintage style sundress. I started off by making a pattern piece in the same way that I did for the Cherry Blossom Dress Sewalong, then adapted it by changing the neckline and removing the shoulders.

Unlike the Cherry Blossom dress and the vintage style sundress, this has buttons down the front. So the bodice front is in 2 sections with button bands and no zip.

This will affect the order in which the dress has to be sewn together, but we’ll come to that later!

Drafting the Bodice Front

Start off with a large piece of pattern paper.

It will need to be about 10 cm (4 inches) longer and wider than your longest and widest measurements.

Draw a vertical line the same length as the distance from the top of your shoulder near your neck to your waist. This will be the centre line of the bodice. When you cut out your fabric, it will be this line that goes on the fold.

On this line, mark off the distance from your shoulder to your armpit and from your shoulder to bust.

At the top of the vertical line, draw another line at right angles to it the same length as half the distance across your collarbone.You only need half the measurement because you’re drawing half of the bodice front.

A couple of cm (about an inch) below and using the measurement across your shoulders divided by 2, draw another line below the first horizontal line.

For the next horizontal line, find where you marked your shoulder to armpit measurement. Draw a horizontal line the same length as your chest measurement divided by 4.

Now find where you marked your shoulder to bust measurement. Draw another horizontal line the same length as your bust measurement divided by 4.

From the bottom end of the first vertical line, draw a horizontal line the same length as a quarter of your waist measurement, plus 2 cm (3/4 inch). The extra cm are to make allowances for the waist darts. We’ll come onto those in a minute!

Now join the lines up! To get the curve of the armhole, you might like to use a French curve. If you don’t have a French curve, you can use a plate instead.

To draw the neckline, measure down about 15 cm (6 inches) from the top of the centre line. Using a French curve, join from here to the far end of the collarbone line.

To position the side darts, find the bust line and mark a couple of cm (3/4 inch) either side. Join these marks to a point about 8 cm (3 inches) along the bust line.

You will need to check this on yourself or on your dress form to determine whether the darts are in the right place, so pin the darts on your pattern piece and hold it onto yourself. If they’re not right, adjust them.

You might need to make them wider or narrower, shorter or longer, or adjust the position a little bit.

To add darts at the bottom of the bodice, find the halfway point on the piece you have made. I found that for this dress, they needed to be a bit longer than on my other dresses, They will need to be about 12 cm (5 inches) long and 2 cm (3/4 inch) wide in total, so 1 cm (3/8 inch) either side of the line. Check it on yourself to get them in the correct place.

Now add a 2 cm (3/4 inch) seam allowance to the bottom, the side and the centre.

Adapting Your Bodice Pattern Piece For the Halter Neck Dress

You can either use this pattern piece and adapt it for the vintage style sundress, or if you prefer, draw round it and put the original to one side.

Find the horizontal line you drew for your chest measurement. Between your chest measurement and your waist, the pattern piece will need to have a straight edge. This is because this is where you’ll be joining the front to the back and if it’s curved you’ll end up with weird bumps.

On the centre line, mark where you would like the top centre of the bodice to be, plus a couple of cm (3/4 inch) for the seam allowance. The best way to do this is to hold the pattern piece against yourself or your dress form and draw it on.

Draw a line from where you marked your chest measurement at the side to where you marked the top of the bodice on the other side. From the chest side, it will need to be curved, then slope gently downwards.

You could use a French curve for this, or a plate if you don’t have one.

Don’t forget to add the darts and a seam allowance if you’re making a copy!

Cut it out.

Drafting the Bodice Back

Draw round the adapted bodice front onto another piece of pattern paper.

Find point where you drew the chest line. Draw a straight, horizontal line across the pattern piece.

Cut it out.

Working Out the Skirt Measurements

The skirt of the halter neck dress is made up of 4 quarter circles with the middle cut out, like a doughnut.

To work out the size of square you need, you will need the length of the skirt, plus the distance from the edge of the doughnut hole to centre.

To do this, you will need pi. If maths isn’t your thing, don’t panic!

Pi is the relationship between the distance around the edge of a circle and the distance across it, passing through the centre. The distance around the edge is roughly 3 times the distance round the middle. We only need to know from the edge to the centre, not right the way across, but this is easy to work out as we can just halve it.

It’s easiest to do this on a calculator. There’s probably one on your phone, or if you Google calculator, it will bring one up.

To calculate the dimensions of the skirt and how much fabric you need, take your waist measurement and add 10 cm (4 inches) for seams and ease.

Divide it by pi, then divide this answer by 2. Jot this down somewhere as you will need it in a minute.

Now add this number to your desired skirt length.

This new number tells you how long the sides of the squares of fabric need to be.

For the lining, you can use the same measurements. Just make the skirt 10 cm (4 inches) shorter.

Now you’re ready to cut out the bodice and skirt pieces of your halter neck dress!

As this is a different style of dress to the ones I usually make, I made a toile for the bodice. I was glad I did, because I discovered that I needed to adjust the side seams and make the darts a bit longer. I’d recommend making a toile if you have time and some spare fabric.

The next post will take you through sewing the halter neck dress together.

How to Design and Make a Dress

July 29, 2018 · Leave a Comment

How to Design and Make a Dress

Have you ever considered that it might just be possible to design and make a dress from scratch?

One of the best things about being able to sew is making your own clothes.

How many times have you been shopping and seen something you quite liked, except that it didn’t fit quite right, it wasn’t available in the right size, you didn’t like the colour or the collar made it look weird?

I’ve walked past things and thought, “That’s nice,” only to be horrified when I’ve seen the price ticket!

Making your own clothes solves these problems.

You can make things you like in a colour and style that suits you. You’re not restricted to what the fashion people have decided we ought to be wearing, and you don’t need to worry about turning up at a party or a wedding in the same outfit as somebody else.

When choosing a pattern, there are probably almost as many as there are different clothes in the shops. If you find a pattern you like, using a different type or colour of fabric or can make it look totally different!

One of the issues I have with patterns is that often I’ll have an idea of what I want to make, but I can’t find a pattern that’s exactly right.

It’s possible to alter patterns. My sister Eleanor is very good at doing this! But it doesn’t always solve the problem of the thing not being what you want in the first place.

Another problem I have with both patterns and ready to wear clothes is that I know what I like, but I can’t always find it.

I love my vintage style dresses and I don’t care at all if that’s a weird thing to wear for the school run! I’d rather celebrate my individuality and creativity by looking like I’m on my way to a 50s themed tea party than be one of the herd in a mummy uniform bought from Next. I don’t fit in anyway, so I might as well make the most of it.

So the answer is to not only make your own clothes, but to design them as well!

If you’ve not tried this before, it might seem daunting. But if you’ve made clothes for yourself from patterns, just think for a minute about what you know and what you can do.

You probably have a good idea of what pattern pieces ought to look like. The chances are you know how to sew darts and how to put in a zip. You can work out order for sewing something together. You know how to sew seams and hems neatly. You can finish a neckline and add a lining. If you’ve tried your hand at making jackets and shirts you probably have a whole lot of other skills too!

So why not put them to good use and design and make a dress yourself?

How to Design and Make a Dress From Scratch

As an idea, designing and making a dress from scratch can be overwhelming. It can be difficult even knowing where to start.

It’s something I’ve done myself lots of times and know that it’s both possible and fun!

I want to encourage you to have a go. This is why I ran the Cherry Blossom Dress sewalong, and it’s why I’ve written my ebook, Designing and Making a Dress From Scratch.

In the ebook I take you through the the stages of how to design and make a dress, from collecting ideas and making sketches, to drafting pattern pieces and choosing fabric, to deciding on an order for making it up, to sewing it all together.

There are also 7 printables to accompany the ebook.

By completing the printables as you go along, you’ll be able to clarify your ideas as you go along, and you’ll end up with a plan for making a dress just like the one that’s in your head!

You can find out more about the ebook here.

I’m going to show you how I’ve used the printables to design a dress that I’m currently making. The tutorial for the dress itself will appear in a week or two when I’ve finished making it!

Using the Printables

I’ve used the printables to design and make a dress, specifically a vintage style halter neck sundress.

Inspiration For Dresses

To design and make a dress, you need a place to start! The best places are where there are dresses that you like.

When you find dresses that catch your eye, the first printable provides you with somewhere to to record your inspiration.

Pinterest is great for this, but if you already have boards full of ideas of things you want to make, you might need to narrow things down a bit.

I have a board called Sewing Clothes With and Without a Pattern, but there are lots of different things on it!

In addition to Pinterest, there are plenty of places to find ideas for pretty dresses! Try Google images, magazines and taking photos on your phone while you’re out.

As I had some idea already of the kind of thing I wanted to make, I identified the ideas that were the most useful, printed them out some of the ideas and stuck them on.

If there’s a url, you can write that in, and there’s room to make some brief notes about fabric etc if you want to. I felt that the pictures were self explanatory, and I’d already decided to make my dress out of cotton.

My Dress Design

Now it’s time to take those ideas that you liked and turn them into your dress

On the second printable you can make some sketches, record sources of inspiration, ideas for fabric and anything else you want to write down.

Under the notes section I wrote that the skirt is a circle, there will be buttons down the front and that the bodice might need facings if I decided not to line it.

In the fabric box I wrote down what I would need, including haberdashery.

This helped to get me thinking a little bit about the 4th printable which is sketching the pattern pieces, and the 5th one, a shopping list for fabric and haberdashery for the dress.

My Measurements

To design and make a dress, you’re going to need to know your measurements.

It doesn’t matter too much when you take your measurements, but it will need to be before you draft the pattern pieces and before you decide how much fabric you’ll need to buy when you go shopping!

Obviously if you’re making a knee length dress, you won’t need to know your waist to floor measurement! So just record the measurements you need.

I didn’t need measurements for hips, arms or anything past my knee, so I didn’t bother with those.

Pattern Pieces

Sketching the pattern pieces will help you to clarify the shapes you’ll need to cut.

If you’ve made clothes for yourself from patterns, you can use that knowledge here. Otherwise a quick google will give you the information you need.

The dress I’m making doesn’t have sleeves or a collar, so I didn’t need to draw anything in those boxes.

Identifying the pattern pieces I’d need to make made me realise that I’d need to cut straps and button bands. I also drew facings, although I’ve since decided to line it instead.

Another thing that I hadn’t thought of was that the button bands and the facings would need fusible interfacing. Working all of this out at this stage meant that nothing got left off the shopping list!

Fabric and Haberdashery Shopping List

Sorting out exactly what I was going to make and how I was going to make it enabled me to think about what I would need, and the shopping list printable meant that I could add things as I thought of them.

For the dresses I make, I usually need 4 metres of fabric (although when I made the last one there was quite a lot left over). I also needed buttons and bias binding. I had some fusible interfacing already.

Writing everything down as it occurred to me meant that nothing got left off the list and I was able to get everything I needed when I made the trip to the fabric shop.

Steps For Sewing Up

When you design and make a dress, sometimes the order in which you do things doesn’t matter very much.

For example, it doesn’t matter if you sew the shoulder seams before you sew the skirt to the bodice or afterwards.

But sometimes the order does matter! If you’re adding darts to the bodice, you’ll need to do that first before you sew side seams or attach the skirt.

Having a plan for the reduces the chances of messing things up and needing to unpick things at best, or having to start again!

I was very glad I did this actually, because the order that I would usually do things in had to be changed because the dress will have buttons instead of a zip.

You can see from the photo that I had to change it!

This is the order I decided on for sewing my dress together:
1. Sew the darts in the dress and the lining
2. Sew side seams of dress and lining
3. Sew straps and pin to bodice
4. Attach lining to bodice along the top
5. Make button bands and sew to bodice
6. Make button holes
7. Sew on buttons
8. Sew skirt sections together (also lining)
9. Attach both skirt and lining to bodice
10. Finish hems with bias binding

Finished Dress

This is the last stage when you design and make a dress, and it’s one that we often miss out!

The last printable gives you the opportunity to record what you’ve made. If you keep these safe, you’ll be able to refer to them long after the dresses you’ve made have worn out.

It also gives you a chance to assess what went well and what you might do differently if you make the same dress again.

Now I’m Ready!

I’ve got my plan.

I know how I want the finished dress to look and it’s clear in my mind.

I know how the pattern pieces will need to look.

My measurements are recorded on the printable.

I’ve bought the fabric and habby.

I’ve got a plan for sewing it up.

So the next part is making the pattern pieces and cutting out before sewing the whole thing together. Because I’ve planned everything out, I feel ready and quite confident that I’ll end up with something wearable.

Sewing clothes without a pattern is a learning journey

When you design and make a dress, you want to end up a lovely thing you can wear, but if it’s not perfect it doesn’t matter.

My vintage style sundress isn’t perfect. There’s a hole at the top of the zip and the waist seams don’t match perfectly. I’ve also had to move the straps a couple of times.

It’s still my favourite dress though! And when I make the halter neck dress, I’ll be extra careful when I’m matching the seams, and I know to take my time positioning the straps.