Tutorial 3: The Bias Way to a Neat Neckline for the Dolam Dress

Onwards to the neckline! This is quick and easy tutorial on how to finish a neckline on a jersey fabric for the dolman dress.

To make the pattern for the dolman dress go to:

Tutorial 1: Pattern for a Super Easy and Comfy Lone Sleeved Dolman Dress

For cutting and sewing instructions got to:

Tutorial 2: Cutting Some Shapes and Sewing them Together for the Dolman Dress

I always find necklines challenging and difficult to get neat and tidy especially on jersey and stretch fabric. After a lot of trial and error in the past this is the method I came up with for finishing necklines using bias tape. This is my go to method for necklines for most things I make so here it is!

MATERIALS NEEDED:

- Bodice of dolman dress
- Matching fabric for the the bias tape
- Iron
- Ironing board
- Pins
- Sewing machine
- Matching thread
- Measuring tape
- Clear sewing ruler
- Rotary cutter or scissors
- Cutting mat

1. First things first - lets measure how much bias tape we need for the neckline. Using a flexible measuring tape measure around the opening of the neckline both front and back. The bias tape will be the same length as the neckline. Add 6/8" to the measurement for seam allowance when you sew the bias ends together.

2. To make the bias tape lay out a piece of the jersey fabric and line up your clear ruler so it runs at a 45 degree angle to the grainline. This is called the bias of the fabric - it has the most stretch so is perfect for the neckline finish. Hopefully the picture below explains how to cut on the bias better than in words!

3. Once you have found the bias cut along this line using your rotary cutter or scissors. The width I use for bias tape is 1.5", I would say this is minimum you would want for jersey fabric as it can be tricky with the stretch. The wider it is the easier it is to sew but it just depends how you want the neckline to look as you will see a line of stitching on the front of the garment. With the bias tape at 1.5" the line of stitching will be 1/2" from the edge of the neckline.

4. To the ironing board! Take your freshly cut bias tape and ready your iron. You will need a measuring tape at this point. Fold over 3/8" of the bias tape and iron along the fold all the way along. The wrong side of the fabric is showing in the picture below. This can be tricky as its a small amount but once you get started it gets easier.

5. Sew the two ends of the bias tape together so it makes a circle making sure you do right side to right side using a 3/8" seam allowance. Then trim the seam allowance to 1/8". Place a pin on the half way line of the bias tape - the seam line marks the other half line. Do the same on the neckline using one of the shoulder seams as a mark, which is where you will want to line up the seam in the bias tape.

6. Pin the unfolded edge of the bias tape the neckline with the fold facing up. If the bias tape is a little small just stretch it to fit evenly. If its too big you'll want to take the bias tape in at the seam as you don't want to stretch the neckline and get a wavy finish.

7. Sew the bias tape to the neckline using a stretch stitch (which looks like a wonky zig zag stitch on my sewing machine) with a 3/8" seam allowance. Be careful not to stretch neckline when your sewing as this makes annoying waves in the fabric that are difficult to undo. Make sure you use a ball point needle and use a longer stitch length if your fabric is super stretchy like mine.

8. Cut away the seam allowance to roughly 1/8". This reduces the bulk around the neckline. If your neckline is very curvy cut a few small triangles in the seam allowance on the most curved bits to make a smooth line being careful not to cut through any stitches.

9. Iron the seam open to get a nice neat finish on the edge of the neckline. Fold the bias tape to the wrong side and pin. Make sure that the fold you made with the iron previously stays folded up. So you should not be able to see any raw edges at this point. The picture below shows the wrong side of the fabric.

10. Sew along the edge of the bias tape as close to the fold as possible, roughly 1/8". Again use the stretch stitch on your sewing machine and a longer stitch if you are having trouble with the fabric stretching as you sew. Use a ball point needle.

Wrong side 

Right side

Voila! That's your neckline finished nice and neatly. Iron lightly to make sure its nice and flat and your done.

Next step sewing the elastic into the waist and getting top and skirt united into one dress! Stay tuned for my next tutorial!

Questions and comments are always good with me!

Tutorial 2: Cutting Some Shapes and Sewing Them Together for the Dolman Dress

Onto the most fun part of making a dress - the actual sewing! Here is a quick guide on how to start to put together the dolman dress for the pattern in my first tutorial, which you can find here: 

Tutorial 1: Pattern for a Super Easy and Comfy Long Sleeved Dolman Dress

MATERIALS NEEDED:

- Pattern

- Jersey knit fabric: 2 yards

- Sewing machine or serger

- Matching thread for fabric

- Scissors

- Rotary cutter and mat (not necessary but makes it easier!)

Ready steady sew!!!!

1. Fold your fabric in half making sure it is down the grain line and then lay and pin the top pattern on the fold of the fabric. Cut it out using scissors or a rotary cutter if you have one. 

Cutting out my top after taking the pattern off. 

Completed top - front

2. Now we need to do the same for the back of the top. If you want to make the neckline higher in the back, which I normally do, you can just add some extra fabric to the neckline when you cut it out by using a shallower curve.

Comparison of my front and back necklines

3. That's the front and back top done, now for the skirt. Fold the fabric again down the grainline and place the skirt pattern on the fold of the fabric and cut out the skirt. Repeat this again so you have both the front and back of the skirt pieces.

One skirt piece cut out on the fold

Now you should have two top and two skirt pieces cut out.

4. Here comes the fun part. Pin the two top pieces right sides together and sew along the side seams and the shoulder seams to create the bodice of the dress. You can do this using either a serger or a regular sewing machine with a stretch or zig zag stitch. 

5. Sew the two front and back skirt pieces together making sure you sew right side to right side. 

Dress top and skirt sewn together

The dress is finally taking shape. The next steps are to finish the neckline, sew in the elastic and waist seam of the dress and finally the hem and sleeve finishes.

In my next post I will go through how to sew in a bias strip into the neckline to get a nice clean finish. Comments and questions welcome :-) 

Tutorial 1: Pattern for a Super Easy and Comfy Long Sleeved Dolman Dress!

I have been busy making lots of new patterns and items for my shop which will be appearing soon once I have taken some photos and moved house! Had a spare day on my hands so I thought I would make a quick and easy elastic waist dolman dress and show you how i make it. So here goes.....

MATERIALS NEEDED:

- Pencil
- Paper
- Tape for sticking paper together
- Ruler
-Tape measure


Now everything is together lets get started!

PATTERN: TOP

1. Get a pencil and paper ready to take some quick measurements for your dress. You'll need the following measurements:

- Neck to wrist
- Nape of neck to natural waist
- Natural waist
- Wrist circumference
- Natural waist to hem

Once you have all of these your ready to draw a pattern for your dress, which will look something like the following picture:

2. To draw this pattern yourself first draw a straight line for the center fold seam the length of your nape of neck to natural waist (mine was 18.5"). 

3. At the bottom of that line draw a line at 90 degrees for your waist measurement which should be  1/4 of your total waist multiplied by how much gathering you want at the waist I used 1.5 my waist measurement. My calculation was as follows:

Waist: 27"

27/4 = 6.75

6.75 x 1.5 = 10.125 

I rounded this to 10" for my waist measurement. 

4. Once you have those lines draw in the neckline you would like - a good way to do this is to trace a neckline from a top or dress you already have that you like. Remember it will only be half of the neckline. I have a slightly higher neckline for the back of the dress, which I adjust when I cut out the dress later on to save paper. 

5. From the edge of the neckline draw a straight line the length of your neck to wrist measurement at a slight angle. I usually do the angle by eye so just as long as its similar to the picture above it will work out fine! 

6. Draw a 90 degree line from the edge of the end of the sleeve the length of half of your wrist circumference. 

7. Finally draw a curve from the end of the sleeve to the side of the waist. This can be as wide or narrow as you like depending on how much fabric you would like in your dress. 

That's it top of the dress pattern complete now for the skirt..

PATTERN: SKIRT

1. Your pattern should look something like this:

2. Draw a straight line the length of your waist to hem measurement which will be the center front line.

3. At the top of that line draw a line at 90 degrees the length of your waist that you used for the top of the dress.

4. Draw a line parallel to the  center front line - if you prefer you can add a flare to the skirt here. 

5. Draw a slight curve from the center front line to the side of the skirt - this adds some shape to the skirt. 

Bosh!! That's it pattern complete for the dress. I'll be posting a tutorial on how to put the dress together ASAP so stay tuned.

Comments and questions welcome so ask away! 

Ivory and Lace

On to my next design. This dress has a princess seam bodice and a half circle skirt. The whole dress is overlayed with an ivory flower lace. The main fabric is a cotton and polyester blend, which has the benefit of not wrinkling and is the perfect weight for this design. I have lined the dress with a rayon bemberg lining that breathes beautifully and feel soft against the skin.

Let me know what you guys think. As always comments are very welcome!

Its been a while!

Sorry its been a busy year for me. Moving house and in the process of building one. In a rental at the moment which is turning into a nightmare due to the absolutely crazy landlord. He has taken us to court to try and evict us for nothing! But that is a whole other story!

Luckily I have still managed to pull together a few new designs for my Etsy shop this summer. I am working on more and will post more details as soon as I have the photos ready!

Here is the first one. I love elegant tea length dresses that can be dressed up or just worn day to day. I used floral ivory lace for the bodice and and striking blue chiffon for the skirt. The skirt is underlined with a rayon lining and the bodice with a soft cotton. The bodice has princess seams, which creates a great fitted look.

Other designs to follow soon.

Draping a Backless Dress

For my next project I decided to make a backless dress using a draping technique. Draping is a great technique that can be used to create a multitude of designs and lets you let your imagination go wild! Its   also a relatively easy way to make a flat pattern without needing to know much about pattern making at all.

I did a couple of quick sketches to get an idea of what I was aiming for (sorry about the quality I'm not exactly talented at drawing!). I love the Breakfast at Tiffany's dress and that basically where I got the idea from but decided to modernize it a little. The skirt will be gathered and short to make it cute and girly. The open back will have pearl beads running across it to give it the classy feel. The front will be very simple with a boat neckline and side bust darts.

Back of the dress with pearls running across

Front of the dress with simple bodice and gathered skirt

So here goes.....

What you will need:

- muslin or other cheap fabric in a light color
- dress form in your size
- scissors
- lots of pins
- something to mark the fabric chalk or a pencil will work fine



1. Cut out a piece of muslin that will fit fully over one side of the dress form - add a few inches extra and overestimate as its a pain when you cut it too small. Then fold this piece in half and iron down the fold line so it leaves a crease mark.

2. Lay the fabric over the dress form so that the fold line goes down the middle and pin in place down the centre line.

3. Smooth out the fabric to the arm holes and neckline and pin in place. You will need to make slashes at the neckline and arm holes to get it to fit properly. You will only need to do this on one side as we will just mirror the pattern at the end. At this point I also cut off quite a bit of fabric off the bottom to make it more manageable as this is only going to the waist I don't need it to be that long. 

4. I decided to add a standard bust dart to my design but remember you can put this dart anywhere you want for your own design. To make the dart pinch the extra fabric and pull in the direction you want the dart.  

Make a fold in the excess fabric so it looks like a normal dart making sure everything stays smooth. 

Pin this down and hey presto there is your dart!

5. Draw around the neckline and arm hole using your chalk or pencil according to your design. Now trim the edges of the muslin so its a little more neat and today. Add slashes where you need to. You want to leave about 2 inches on all the seams in case you need to add any fabric later.

So thats the front draped and done now for the back...

6. As you did with the front cut a piece of muslin so it will over the entire back with some excess and fold down the center and iron in the crease. Pin the muslin down the center line of the back on the dress form. Smooth it out to the shoulders and arms. I am not adding any darts to my back so I pulled it pretty tight. You can add darts in the same method as we used for the front if you desire! 

7. Draw the outline of the back you want on the muslin and match the seams as well as you can to the front on the side and shoulder. Don't forget to draw side and shoulder seams on both the front and back. 

8. Cut out the shape of your design leaving an excess again just in case. Put slashes in where you need to. 

9. Remove the muslin from the dress form and you almost have a working pattern for the bodice of your dress - woohoo! For the back fold the muslin on the crease line you made and cut out the shape onto the other side of the fabric to make a full pattern. 

Sorry about the photos from here it got dark and the light in my sewing room is pretty dire! 

Cut out the center area and you have a full back done. 

10. The front is a little trickier because of the dart. First you need to mark the outline of the dart before taking the pins out. I just draw along the fold line with pencil. Once you have marked the dart unpin it and fold it over along the crease and cut the outline for the other side. 

11. To transfer the dart to the other side I use pins and pin down the line if the dart on both sides. Then flip over and you can see the pins on the other side. 

Then flip over and you can see the pins on the other side. Mark the dart using pencil and you have your full front bodice. 

12. Try and test your newly made bodice! Sew the darts with a long stitch and sew front and back bodice together leaving one side or the back open so you can actually get it on. I am using a side zip so I left the side open. I didn't take any photos of this part sorry. Make any adjustments you need to make i.e. altering the bust dart or side seams etc. It is very important that you the fit right at this stage so take your time and be certain it fits the way you like before moving on. 

13. The next few steps are to make a flat pattern which you don't necessarily need to do if your just making a one off dress. If you unpick the muslin including the darts you can use this as the pattern. For both cases cut along the seam lines so you don't have any seam allowances on the pattern. This reduces the error that can be made when trying to add seam allowances at this stage. 

Cut out back pattern with no seam allowances

14. To transfer this to paper simply pin the back to paper draw around it then cut it out.

15. For the front cut it out the same as the back without any seam allowance and pin to the paper. To transfer the dart I use the pin method again.

For the dart add a triangle so it can folded over and sewn into the side seam. 

And thats finally it you have made yourself a unique design that fits perfectly using draping. All you have to do now is the simple task of actually making the dress! Stay tuned for photos of my completed project. 

Thanks for reading and as ever please feel free to leave comments and questions :-)