My sewing goal while pregnant is to make dresses that will still look good after my belly is back to normal. So maternity wear that is able to translate into normal wear.  Previous attempts include my Long Sleeve Sheath Dress Tutorial, Simplicity’s 1360 dress, and my Breezy Trapeze Dress Tutorial.  Today, in my attempt to do that, we will make a boxy summer dress with a v-neck both in the front and the back that sports little tiny sleeves.  To help the dress keep its shape up top and not fall off the shoulders, we will add a small strip of material across the back v-neck.  This dress idea was inspired after a Silence + Noise Vega shift dress that was selling at Urban Outfitters, which is unfortunately sold out.  I was originally planning on adding some front rectangular patch pockets, but since my belly is 37 weeks out at this time, it’s hard to gauge exactly where I want to put them.  So, I plan on adding them after my little man makes his grand entrance.  While pregnant, I always feel that adding a belt helps flatter my shape but without a belt looks nice too! I just think it’s just best to show off that tummy rather than hide it. 🙂  Read along for my DIY double v-neck boxy dress tutorial…

The skinny:

Regular box dresses are easy to make, but the steps I do with gathering the sleeves are slightly difficult and kind of annoying. So, if you’re feeling adventurous you can gather the sleeves in, but if you skip taking the sleeves in, this will be a much simpler dress to make.  Every other step in this v-neck boxy dress tutorial is pretty straight forward.

Materials:

• pattern supplies (pattern paper, pencil, scissors, rulers)
• a v neck dress or shirt you can use as a guide for the neckline

• 2 yards of fabric (I’m using a cotton gauze fabric)
• matching thread

Now onto my Double V-Neck Boxy Dress Tutorial

Instructions:

MAKING THE PATTERN

1.  The pattern for this dress will essentially be a rectangle (or box!), cut in two to make a v-neck, then sewn back together.  To get your dimensions, we will need two measurements, one across the top of your shoulders from where you want your sleeves to begin and end, and one from the top of your shoulders down to where you want the bottom of the dress hem to be.

The desired length across my shoulders was 24″.  For the length of the dress, take the measurement from the top of your shoulders down to the bottom of the hem and multiply that number by 2.  I want my dress to be 37″ long so 37 x 2 = 74″.  So, the dimensions of my rectangle are 24″ x 74″.  Draw this onto pattern paper and cut it out. (You can skip the pattern paper if you want, but I like to have it so I can have more control if I want to change something up the next time I make the same kind of dress).

Fold your rectangle in half along the width. Fold it in half again, but this time lengthwise.

2.  Take your shirt or dress that you like the v-neck of, fold it in half lengthwise, and place it on your pattern so the fold of the shirt lines up with the fold on the pattern paper (also make sure the top of the shoulder on the shirt matches up with the first fold). Mark where the bottom of the v-neck falls onto your pattern paper.  Also mark where the top of the neckline, where the v-neck reaches the shoulder.  Using a ruler, draw a straight line from the first to the second mark creating a triangle.  Cut out the triangle and open up your pattern.  This is your neckline.

3.  Now I want my back neckline to be slightly more dramatic (or more va va voom!) so I will make the v-neck slightly deeper in the back, cutting that line a little lower.  This is up to you.  To do this, open up the pattern completely and fold it in half lengthwise.  Add a mark to the bottom of the v-neck on what will be the back of your dress.  Using a ruler, draw a line from this mark to where we had originally cut at the top of the shoulders.  Cut this out.  Now if you open up your pattern, you should see a rectangle with a slightly uneven diamond shape in the middle.

4.  Next, we will make the pattern for that little strip that goes across the back v-neck.  Open up your pattern so that the back v-neck of the dress is visible.  Measure 4″ down from the top of the both shoulders and make a mark.  This is where you want the top of your strip to be located.  Measure the distance between those two marks (mine was 4 ¾”).  Using your pattern paper, cut a 1″ strip of material the length between the two marks + 1″ or so.   I will cut my strip 6″ long.  It’s better to cut it longer than shorter as you can always trim the excess later.

5.  Finally, we’re going to cheat the V-neck in this pattern.  Take your dress pattern and cut it down the middle from the bottom of the V-necklines to the bottom hem of the dress.  You should already have a fold along where you need to cut, but I will use a ruler and draw the line to make it more precise.  Cut the dress in half.

Now we have all our pattern pieces.

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.  I traced my pattern pieces onto the fabric using white pastels.  Cut out the 3 dress parts.

2. The first thing I’m going to do is zigzag (or serge) all the raw edges of my fabric pieces.  My fabric is prone to fraying so this step is necessary for me.  If you have a knit fabric, you can skip to step 3.

3. Next, we will hem the neckline.  From the wrong side of your fabric, fold the neckline in twice (this fold will span from the middle of the front v-neck to the middle of the back v-neck).  Pin and sew in place.  Do this for each half.  You might want to mark where the shoulders are with a pin on either side.

4.  Right sides together, pin and sew the two front pieces together with your desired seam allowance.  Be sure to match up the bottom of the front v-neck on both pieces, and the bottom of the back v-neck on both pieces.  When you open up the fabric, you should see that diamond shape that was in the pattern.

5.  Try on the dress.  Make sure that the shoulders are sitting where they should.  With a pin, mark where you want the bottom of your sleeve opening to be.  Take off the dress and mark the same exact spot on the other sleeve with a pin. I would use a ruler to make sure you get it precise! Once you like it, mark the spot for both sleeves on both the front and back of the dress (I’m using a charcoal pencil).

Unpin the bottom of the sleeves so the front and back aren’t pinned together.  As with the neckline, from the wrong side of the fabric, fold the sleeves in twice.  Pin and sew in place.

6.  Right sides together, pin and sew up the side seams of the dress with your desired seam allowance.

7.  Now we will add the fabric strip onto the back neckline.  If you recall from making the pattern, we want our fabric strip to be 4″ down from the top of the shoulders.  Measure this onto your fabric on either side of the back v-neck and mark it (I’m using white charcoal, but pins would work as well).

Fold your the top of your fabric strip down on the wrong side ¼” and pin and sew in place.  Now fold the bottom of your fabric strip up on the wrong side ¼” and pin and sew in place making the width of your fabric strip ½”.

Attach the right side of the fabric strip to the wrong side of the back v-neckline where you marked 4″ down.  Pin and sew in place.

8.  Next we are going to take in each sleeve and let it open up in the back to sort of fake a back shoulder dart on each side.  This will help give the top a more fitted shape.  This part is kind of a pain. Sorry about that 🙂

On the front of the dress on the wrong side, mark along the top of both shoulders both 5″ and 7″ in from the edge of the sleeve (I’m going to mark mine with charcoal).  Draw a curve from the from the 5″ mark to the armpit (I will be using a French curve to make it easier).  Draw a second curve from the 7″ mark atop the shoulder to the armpit.  Do this for both the left and right sides on both the front and back of the dress.  On the front of the dress, pin the two lines together so that it creates a fold that protrudes from the dress.

On the back of the dress, draw two marks 6″ down from the top of the should along the lines you just drew.  Pin the two lines together from the top of the shoulders down to the marks  6″ down.  Pin the lines together so that it creates a fold that protrudes from the dress which ends 6″ below the shoulder.

Now sew all these folds in place.  Be forewarned, this is the difficult part.  Take care to sew just the folds together so that the fold can be pulled perpendicular away from the dress.  Do not sew the fold to the body of the dress.  I sewed my folds several times just in case.

I had an issue when sewing this that there was some extra material at the shoulder.  I just sewed it across and trimmed off the excess fabric.

9.  The final step is to hem our dress.  On the wrong side of your fabric, fold in your dress twice to your desired hem width, pin and sew in place.

Fini! I hope you enjoyed my V-Neck Boxy Dress Tutorial 🙂