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 Sew a Reversible Wrap Skirt

July 28, 2017 · 4 Comments

How to Sew a Reversible Wrap Skirt

In my quest for a neat and tidy house, I have realised that the best way to achieve this is to have less stuff.

With 6 of us in a small house, this is not easy! But I know that there are things I can do to make things much better.

Having too many clothes can be an issue. How many of us have opened a wardrobe bulging with clothes and immediately thought, “I have nothing to wear!”?

I’m trying to cut mine right down to a few things I wear all the time and get rid of things that hardly see the light of day (or refashion them into something else, like I did with this top!).

So to maximise on wardrobe space and keep actual outfits to a minimum, I’ve made a reversible wrap skirt, so it’s 2 skirts in 1!

The good thing about a wrap skirt is that they are easy to adjust. All you have to do is check that the button is in the right place. And if you gain or lose weight, it’s easy enough to move the button.

It’s a good project for a beginner as it’s easy to make and it doesn’t matter too much if your measurements are a bit off.

Making a Reversible Wrap Skirt

I have included some affiliate links.

You Will Need

Some large pieces of paper (pattern paper is ideal but you could use newspaper), pencil, ruler, tape measure, french curve (optional) cotton fabric for the outside, contrasting cotton fabric for the inside (2 metres of each will be plenty), bias binding, 2 buttons.

Drafting the Pattern Pieces

To draft the pattern pieces for a reversible wrap skirt, you will need your waist measurement and your measurement from your waist to your knee. You’ll also need to decide how wide you want the skirt to be at the bottom.

On a folded piece of pattern paper, measure down the fold the same length as you would like your skirt to be. Now draw a line outwards from the top of where you marked. The length of this line will need to be your waist divided by 4, and it will need to go upwards slightly.

From the bottom of where you marked on the fold, draw another line your desired skirt width. This will also need to go upwards.

Join the end of this line to the end of the other horizontal line. Both the horizontal lines will need to curve gently.

If you are unsure about drawing the bottom edge, take your tape measure and find the halfway point along the waistline. Measure down to your desired skirt length. You could do this ¼ and ¾ of the way along as well. This will help you to draw the curve so that the skirt is the same length all the way across.

This is half of the skirt back. To draft the skirt front pieces, you will need to draw around this so that you have one complete skirt. Using a French curve (or a plate if you don’t have one), round off one corner.

Cutting Out

From both outer and inside fabric, you will need to cut 2 skirt front pieces on folded fabric, and 1 skirt back piece.

You will also need to cut a waistband 10 cm wide and long enough to go around the top of the skirt, plus 40 cm extra for tying. You might need to cut this in a couple of sections and sew them together.

For the ties, cut 2 more pieces 10 cm wide and 40 cm long.

Sewing Up

1. Take the outer skirt pieces and sew the front sections to either side of the back. Make sure you sew the straight edges as the curved edges need to be at on the outside. Trim the seams and press them

Do the same with the inside skirt pieces.

2. Pin the outer to the inside with the wrong sides together, matching the seams.

3. Starting up at the top of the skirt, pin one end of the bias binding to the inside of the skirt. The raw edges will need to line up and it will be easier if you fold the bias binding in half lengthways before sewing.

Don’t worry about pinning it all the way round. Just pin it at the start then sew, keeping close to the fold.

4. Fold the bias binding over the raw edges and top stitch all the way round. If you remembered to fold the bias tape in the previous step, you will find this much easier!

5. To make the waistband, join the sections together if you haven’t already.

Fold it in half lengthways and press. Open it out, then fold the raw edges into the middle. Press again.

Fold it in half lengthways again and press.

6. Starting at the left side of the skirt, fold the end over, then pin the raw edge of the waistband to the top of the skirt on the inside. Sew it to the skirt. Don’t worry about the extra for the tie at the moment.

7. Fold the waistband over the raw edges and pin. Top stitch all the way round. When you get to the tie, keep going, stopping 3 or so cm before the end. Tuck the end in, then stitch over it.

8. Make the ties in the same way as the waistband. Fold the strips in half lengthways, press, then open them out. Fold the raw edges into the centre and press again. Tuck the ends in a couple of cm, then sew along the open edge.

9. Sew the ties to the waistband at the left hand side seam. You will need to sew one to the outside of the skirt and one to the inside.

10. Try the skirt on so you can establish where the buttons need to go. If your measuring was accurate, it should be roughly where the other side seam is. Sew a button onto both sides.

On the part of the skirt opposite the button, make a loop by making chains with doubled thread. Attach the end close to where you started. If you need a tutorial showing how to do this, there’s a good one here.

Run the iron on your reversible wrap skirt one last time and it’s ready to wear!

This reversible wrap skirt could be adjusted to make a lined skirt for the colder months.

If you liked this post, you might also like these:

Making Trousers Without a Pattern

How to Draft a Bodice

Cherry Blossom Dress Without a Pattern

Circle Skirt Tutorial

Linking up here.

How to Sew Trousers From Your Own Measurements

July 6, 2017 · 2 Comments

How to Sew Trousers From Your Own Measurements

Last week I showed how to draft a trouser pattern from your measurements. The trouser pattern I made was for Cosmo’s measurements, but the same principles apply whatever the size of person!

So now I’m going to explain how to sew trousers from the pattern you’ve made so that you can have a beautiful pair of made to measure trousers!

How to Sew Trousers

You Will Need

Your trouser pattern pieces (you should have a back piece and a front piece. If you haven’t made them yet, you can find out how to here), fabric (I used cotton), elastic, usual sewing supplies.

Cutting Out

To cut out your pattern pieces, you will need 2 each of the front section and the back section. Cut them on folded fabric so the pieces are mirror images of each other.

Did you add a seam allowance to your pattern pieces? If not, don’t worry. Just add an extra cm or 2 around the outside of the pieces while you’re cutting out.

Make sure that you add about 5 cm to the top of the waist to allow for the casing for the elastic.

Sewing Up

1. Take the 2 front pieces and pin them, right sides together, along the centre seam. This is the bit that goes from the waist to the end of the crotch extension. Sew the seam. Trim it and clip the curved part. Press the seam open.

Do the same with the 2 back pieces.

2. With the right sides together, pin the front and back pieces along the side seams. Sew them, then trim the seams and press them open.

3. Now pin and sew the inside leg seams. I always start at the centre so that I can be sure of the centre seams matching. I’d also sew over the centre part a few times as this the part of the trousers that is put under the most strain, especially on a 4 year old’s trousers!

Trim the seam but not too closely! Clip the curves. It will be difficult to press this seam, especially on a child’s trousers unless you have a small ironing board for ironing sleeves and little trouser legs (affiliate link). Do what you can, but don’t worry too much.

4. To make the casing for the elastic, fold the top of the trousers over about a cm, then fold it over again another couple of cm. Pin it, then starting about half a cm away from the centre back seam. Make sure that you that you sew close to the folded edge furthest from the top of the trousers or you won’t be able to get the elastic in!

When you get back near to where you started, stop sewing about half a cm before the centre seam. This will leave you an opening of about a cm to get the elastic in when you thread it through the casing.

5. Hem the bottoms of the trouser legs by folding the hem over about a cm, then folding it again. Pin, then sew the hem, keeping close to the folded edge furthest away from the bottom of the trousers.

To get a nice, neat finish to the hem, match side seams while you’re folding.

Trim away any stray threads, run the iron over them one more time and your trousers are ready to wear!

Linking up here.

How to Draft a Trouser Pattern

June 30, 2017 · 17 Comments

How to Draft a Trouser Pattern

One of the things I love about sewing for little ones is that they don’t care about what other people think!

My youngest boy, Cosmo, is 4. He doesn’t think in terms of some things being for boys and other things being for girls, he just thinks about whether he likes them. His favourite colour is pink.

With Cosmo starting school in September, I know that these days of him being free to be just who he is in the way that only small children are are coming to an end, and try as I might to keep him this way, he will be dictated to a bit by other kids at school.

So when I had to go into King’s Lynn to rescue a pair of shoes that got left on the bus, I jumped at the chance to take my little lamb to the fabric shop and let him chose something that I could make into a pair of trousers.

Cosmo chose some fabric with the bees on, which I think will make a lovely pair of trousers for the rest of the summer!

I didn’t have a pattern and last time I made trousers, I drew round a pair of trackie bottoms. This worked out ok, but they were a bit baggy around the top.

So this time, I decided to draft a trouser pattern properly so my little boy will have a pair of gorgeous bumble bee trousers that fit his sweet little self perfectly!

How to Draft a Pair of Trousers

It’s easier than you might think to draft a trouser pattern! Although this was a pair for a little boy, the same principles apply whatever the size of the person.

You Will Need

Pattern paper or greaseproof paper, a pencil, a ruler and a tape measure. A French curve is useful but you could use a plate instead if you don’t have one. These are affiliate links.

Taking Measurements

The key to sewing clothes that fit properly is taking accurate measurements.

To draft a trouser pattern, you will need to measure:

Waist to ankle (the easiest way to do this is to dangle the tape measure upside down)
Waist to knee
Waist to hips (at the widest point)
Rise (sit on a chair, then measure from your waist to where your butt meets the chair)

Around your waist
Around the front of your hips at the widest point
Around the back of your hips
Around your knee

You’ll also need to decide how wide you want the trousers to be at the bottom.

Drafting the Pattern

The pattern will be drafted in 2 sections. There’ll be one section for the back, and one for the front. These sections will then be cut on doubled fabric, so you’ll have 2 back pieces and 2 front pieces.

Trouser Front

1. Take your pattern paper and down one edge, draw a vertical line the same length as the distance from your waist to your ankle. If you are making trousers for yourself, you might need to stick pieces of paper together.

2. On that vertical line, mark on your waist (that’s at the top), distance from waist to hips, your rise, and waist to knee.

3. Now you’re going to draw on the horizontal lines. These will go where you marked on the vertical line.

Take your waist measurement and divide it by 4. Add 1 cm for ease and draw that line at the top of the vertical line.

4. Take your front hip measurement and divide it by 2. Add 1 cm, then draw that horizontal line where you marked your hips.

5. Underneath that, where you marked your rise, draw another horizontal line the same length as your front hip measurement. This line will need to be longer, so we have to calculate the crotch extension (I wish they’d call it something else!). How long was the line you just drew? Multiply that by 0.25, then extend the rise line by that amount.

6. Now find where you marked your waist to knee measurement on the vertical line. Divide your knee measurement in half, and 1 cm for ease and draw it on.

7. At the bottom of the line, draw a last horizontal line. This will be the width you want the trousers to be at the bottom.

8. Now join the lines up! The waist to hip line will be straight.The next part, the hip to rise, will need to be curved. For this you can use a French curve, or a plate will do if you don’t have one. The rise to ankle will also be a straight line.

Don’t worry about joining it to the knee line. Just make sure that you don’t go through that line, or you’ll have issues getting your trousers on!

Drafting the Trouser Back

Drafting the back section is done in exactly the same way as the front, with 2 exceptions.

The first is that where you draw you hip line, you will need to use the measurement you took around the back of your hips, divided by 2, plus 1 cm for ease of wearing.

The other exception is that to work out the crotch extension, you will need to multiply the hip line by 0.3.

Adding the Seam Allowance

You will need to add a seam allowance to your pattern pieces. You can either draw around your pattern piece to add a seam allowance, or you could just add it in when you’re cutting out.

It’s a good idea to write on your pattern pieces whether you’ve added in the seam allowance or not to avoid causing yourself confusion if you decide to make yourself another pair at a later date.

Next week I’ll be showing you how to sew the pieces together to make the trousers!

Linking up here.

How to Draft a Sleeve Pattern Piece

June 20, 2017 · Leave a Comment

How to Draft a Sleeve Pattern Piece

Last week I showed how to draft a simple bodice pattern piece.

Once you have your pattern piece drafted, there are lots of possibilities for what you could make with it. You could add a skirt and turn it into a dress, change the neckline or make it into a top.

Sleeveless is fine, but depending on what you’re making, you might want to add some sleeves.

The good news is that it is easier and quicker to draft a sleeve pattern piece than a bodice!

Once you have the piece made, you can alter the length, the style and the shape of the sleeve to fit with the garment that you are making.

Drafting a Sleeve

Sleeves are an odd shape. They look nothing at all like how you would expect!

The top part needs to be curved to fit into the armhole, which is also curved.

In the past I have drawn sleeves free hand, just using a piece of string to get the size of the curved top part correct.

Unfortunately this is not very accurate and I have on occasion ended up with sleeves that were a bit of a snug fit!

Thankfully with a little bit of measuring it’s possible to get sleeves that fit your arm and fit the armhole of the thing you’re making!

You Will Need

To draft a sleeve pattern piece, you will need some large sheets of paper (pattern paper is best but you could use greaseproof paper or newspaper), a pencil and eraser and a long ruler. A French curve is also useful. These are affiliate links.

1. Draw a vertical line the same length as the distance from your shoulder to just below your armpit.

2. At the bottom of the line, draw a horizontal line the same length as the distance around the top of your arm.

3. Use a French curve to join to the top of the vertical line to the ends of the horizontal line.

4. To draw the rest of the sleeve, extend the first line. This will determine the length of the sleeve, so you will need to measure from your armpit to where you want the sleeve to end.

5. At the bottom, draw another line at right angles. This will need to be the total distance around the opening of the sleeve.Then join up the lines.

A tapered piece will give a more fitted sleeve. If it is less tapered the sleeve will be looser.

To make shorter sleeves, just measure around your arm higher up and adjust the length accordingly.

If you like to make clothes without a pattern, you might enjoy these posts:

Circle skirt without a pattern

Cherry blossom dress without a pattern

Blue and white dress without a pattern

25 tips for sewing clothes without a pattern

Little boy’s shirt without a pattern

Linking up here.

Halter Neck Dress Without a Pattern: Drafting the Pattern

Drafting Pattern Pieces For a Halter Neck Dress

You Will Need

Taking Measurements

Drafting the Bodice

Drafting the Bodice Front

Drafting the Bodice Back

Working Out the Skirt Measurements

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How to Sew a Reversible Wrap Skirt

Making a Reversible Wrap Skirt

You Will Need

Drafting the Pattern Pieces

Cutting Out

Sewing Up

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How to Sew Trousers From Your Own Measurements

How to Sew Trousers

You Will Need

Cutting Out

Sewing Up

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How to Draft a Trouser Pattern

How to Draft a Pair of Trousers

You Will Need

Taking Measurements

Drafting the Pattern

Trouser Front

Drafting the Trouser Back

Adding the Seam Allowance

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How to Draft a Sleeve Pattern Piece

Drafting a Sleeve

You Will Need

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