Today we will be making a fun trapeze dress for this wonderful, much needed warm weather.  A trapeze dress is one that takes on the shape of a trapezoid in that it is short on the top and long at the bottom.  It is tight fitting around the arms and in a straight line, flares out to a dramatic width at the bottom.  This trapeze dress tutorial is perfect for me since I am pregnant and looking for something airy that I can wear during the heat of the summer.

Though this style of dress is a dream for the pregnant lady, it’s also lovely on non-pregnant ladies as well!  I read somewhere that the secret to a chic trapeze dress is that it must be above the knee so we will aim for that here (though I will leave it a little longer to accommodate my growing bump as I can hem it again later).  This dress will adorn short sleeves, a scooped neckline, and inseam pockets.

For those pregnant ladies out there, other dresses that you can make that will grow with your bump include my Long Sleeve Sheath Dress Tutorial, Double V-Neck Boxy Dress Tutorial, and this Simplicity’s 1360 dress. And for other fun dress ideas, visit one of my favorite Internet sewing sites, https://www.allfreesewing.com.

The skinny:

This is a very simple dress to make.  The only slightly difficult part of the trapeze dress tutorial is adding the inseam pockets with interfacing, which I explain a bit more clearly in my Inseam Pockets Tutorial (Version 2).  However, to me, it was totally worth it.  The pockets look great along the side seams and the interfacing keeps them looking crisp.  There is a lot of fabric width involved so sewing takes a bit longer.  Just listen to some music and enjoy the process. 🙂

Materials:

• pattern supplies (pattern paper, pencil, scissors, rulers)
• a dress or shirt you can use as a guide

• 2 yards of knit fabric (look for one with a width between 45-60″)
• matching thread
• fusible knit interfacing (optional – for stabilizing pockets)

Now onto my Breezy Trapeze Dress Tutorial

Instructions:

MAKING THE PATTERN

1.  We’ll start by making the pattern for the back piece.  Lay out your dress or shirt onto your pattern paper, tucking the arms under.  Trace around the top part of the shirt, stopping just below the armpits.  At about knee length, use a ruler and draw the bottom of the hem so that it is quite wide (I’m using the bottom of the pattern paper as the bottom of my dress and am making it 45″ wide).  Using a straight edge, draw a straight line from just below the armpits to the bottom of the dress.  Cut this out.

*At this point, I decided I wanted to add a slight dip in the hem. To do this, I added some pattern paper to the bottom, marked a point 3″ down from the middle, and drew a semi-circular line to each edge.  Cut this out.

Fold the pattern in half and trim off any excess paper to make sure both sides are even.

2.  Next we’ll make the front piece.  Make a second copy of the back dress pattern.  The only thing we will need to adjust will be the neckline.  Using a shirt you like as a guide, draw and cut out the shape of the neckline.  I’m going to make mine a scooped neckline.  Fold this front piece in half and trim off any excess to make sure the neckline and both sides of the front piece are even.

3.  Now we will make the lining pieces for the front and back neckline.  Trace around the necklines on your front and back dress patterns.  Using a ruler, make these neck lining pattern pieces 1-1½” wide and cut them out.

4.  Moving right along, we will make the sleeve pattern.  Take a piece of pattern paper, fold it in half, and tuck it under either sleeve opening of the front or back dress pattern so the fold matches up with the top of the shoulder.  The fold will be the top of your sleeve.  Trace around the sleeve opening.

Holding your arm out straight, measure from the top of your shoulder down to where you want your sleeve to end.  This is your desired sleeve length (mine was 10″).  From the top of where you traced the sleeve opening, measure your desired sleeve length down along the fold.

Using your measuring tape, now find out the circumference of the width of your arm where you desired sleeve length ends.  You can make this is as tight or as loose you want (I’m going to make mine 11″).  Take this measurement and divide it in half to get the length you draw down at the edge of your sleeve (so, 5½” for me).  Draw a straight line from the edge of your sleeve just up to the bottom armpit area of the sleeve.  Draw a little curve near the armpit connecting up to the straight line you just drew.  This will be the bottom of your sleeve.  Cut this out.

5.  We’re going to make the pockets like we did in my original Inseam Pockets Tutorial, but with some slight alterations.  To make the pattern for your pocket, place your hand along the edge of a piece of pattern paper at a slight angle.  Trace around your hand and make the pocket as roomy as you want.  Cut this out.

Now, on to the sewing!

MAKING THE DRESS

1.  Pin/trace your pattern pieces onto the wrong side of your fabric adding your desired seam allowances.  Make sure to orient the grain of the fabric so the stretch goes from side to side for your dress pieces and along the width of the sleeves (see diagram above).  I traced my pattern pieces onto the fabric using white pastels.  Cut out the 10 dress parts.

2.  Take your dress pieces, right side together, pin then sew across the top of each shoulder.  Trim off any excess fabric.

3.  Next we will attach the sleeves.  Right sides together, match the middle of the shoulder part of the sleeve to the shoulder seam on the dress, pin the sleeve in place, making your way down to the armpits.  Sew this with your desired seam allowance.  Repeat with the other sleeve. Trim off any excess fabric.

4.  Now we will add the pockets.  Rather than supporting the whole pocket with the fusing like we did here, we will just use strips.  If using interfacing, cut a 2″ wide strip of interfacing the same length as the top of the pocket. You might want to trim a bit off the ends so that the interfacing is a tiny bit smaller than the pocket fabric.  This will help when fusing the interfacing.  Make (2) of these in one direction, and (2) the opposite direction.

Now we will fuse the interfacing to the pockets.  For this you will need an iron, ironing board, and a damp cloth.  Place your interfacing onto the pocket fabric, rough side down.  Make sure that the interfacing is slightly smaller than your pockets so that the interfacing doesn’t adhere to the ironing board below while pressing.  Once you have them positioned, cover them over with a damp cloth (I used a hand towel).  Iron over the damp cloth until the interfacing is adhered, about 10 seconds or so over each spot.  Do this for both sets of pockets.  This will adhere the interfacing to your pocket fabric and help stabilize the pockets.

Try on your dress to determine where the top of the pocket will begin.  Mark this with a pin.  Right sides together, pin and sew your pocket piece along the side of the dress where you marked with a pin.  Be careful not to sew your pockets closed and sew two pockets to the front of the dress and two pockets to the back of the dress (you need to be able to reach your hand into your pocket).  Make sure that the pocket is pointing downwards.  Do this for all (4) pockets, being careful to make sure that they will match up.  I will sew mine with a ⅜” seam allowance, slightly less than the rest of the dress which I will sew with a ½” seam allowance.

5.  Right sides together, starting with the end of your sleeve, pin and sew along the bottom of the sleeve, to the armpit, along the side of the dress, around the pockets, and down to the bottom of the dress.  Do this for the other side and cut off any excess fabric.

6.  Next, the neckline.  Right sides together, pin and sew the ends of your neckline linings together so it forms a circle, of sorts. When this neckline lining is sewn together, you want it to be about 1″ inch or so shorter than your actual neckline, depending on the stretch of your material (more stretchy=1-2″ shorter; less stretchy=0-1″ shorter).  This lining must be stretched as you sew it onto your dress.  The reason for this is that it will help your neckline keep its shape and not sag.

Right sides together, pin the neckline lining to the dress.  To make sure it is put on evenly,  first pin each seam of the neckline lining to the to top each shoulder, then pin the middle of the front of the lining to the middle of the front neckline, and then the middle of the back of the lining to the middle of the back of the neckline.  Add more pins as you want (I will add 8 more for 12 pins total), but you may have to stretch the neckline lining  as you pin to make sure it fits.  Sew these together, stretching the neck lining as you sew.

Tuck the neck lining fabric into the inside of the dress so you see right side of the seam.  Pin the lining in place on the wrong side of the dress and again sew around the neckline, but this time use a wide straight stitch.

7.  Almost there! Hem your sleeves to your desired length.  I added some decorative stitching to jazz it up.

8.  Finally, hem the length of your dress to your desired length.  I also added the decorative stitching here.

You’ve now finished the breezy trapeze dress tutorial!  Now you have a brand new dress to enjoy for the summer!