stef makes.art creative projects by stephanie paulantis

DIY Chevron Dress Tutorial: Part One - Drafting the Pattern

April 18, 2013

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

This is the tutorial for how to draft the pattern to make a Chevron Dress. [The rest of the Tutorial can be found here.]({% post_url 2013-04-17-chevron-dress-tutorial %})

As I mentioned in my preamble, I screwed up when I originally drafted this pattern a little.

I made the top way too boxy at first. Once I tried it on I realized I needed to bring the sides in at more of an angle to make the dress hang right. Therefore a few of the pictures below will not quite look how they’re supposed to, but I’ve compensated for that with some edits, as you’ll see below.

I strongly recommend drafting this pattern BEFORE you buy your fabric for this project, because you will need to know how big your skirt pattern is to know how wide of fabric you will need to buy. Once you have the whole thing drafted out, you can experiment with laying it out and decide how much fabric you’ll need to buy. Also note that this pattern is drafted with negative ease, so you’ll want to buy knit fabric or something with some stretch to it.

Here’s how to draft it, it’s really quite simple.

You will need:

-a flexible tape measure -a yard stick -a ruler -some large sheets of paper (I used old newsprint to recycle, you can use anything you want.) -a marking pen of some kind -a large cutting mat or any kind of ruled base will be extremely helpful, but not absolutely necessary.

DIY Chevron Dress: Bodice

Step One: Take some Measurements

Using your flexible tape measure, take the following measurements on whoever the dress is intended for:

  1. From one shoulder just to one side of the neck to just underneath the breast on that same side. Add 2” to this measurement and call it H.
  2. Bust measurement (all the way around the torso at the fullest part of the bust, this can and should be taken with a bra on, if you normally wear bras.) Subtract 2 from this measurement, then divide by 4, round it to the nearest 1/4”, and call it W.
  3. Around the base of the neck. Divide this by 4, round it to the nearest 1/4”, and call it N.
  4. Around the chest, just below the breast. Write this measurement down for your skirt later, then subtract this measurement from W. Divide it by 4, round it to the nearest 1/4”, and call it Z.

That’s it.

Step Two: Draw a Square Line

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Before you start drafting, it’s important to draw a long line across the bottom of your sheet to which you can square all your other measurements to. This is why it’s handy to have a ruled cutting mat, you can draw this line edge to edge and line it up on the mat before doing your other lines and they’ll be square.

Step Three: Draw a Rectangle that is H x W

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Step Four: Place a Mark N from the Left

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Step Five: Draw in the Neckline

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Decide how deep you want the neckline to be, as well as the shape. For my dress, I wanted a deep V-Neck, so I drew a line 10” from the top and connected a line from N that was fairly steep. You could do a shallower V by drawing a line only 5” from the top, or create a rounded neckline by curving the connecting line.

Step Six: Draw in Guidelines for Shoulder and Sleeve:

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Next you will create two dotted lines to help finish up the pattern. First draw a horizontal dotted line 2” down from the top. Then, draw a vertical dotted line 1” to the right of the rectangle. Note the intersection of these points. (Also, ignore the top line that I scribbled out. That was also a mistake.)

Step Seven: Draw the Shoulder Line

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Draw a slightly curving line from N to the intersection of the two dotted lines.

Step Eight: Draw in the Armhole

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Mark a line 10” from the top of the rectangle (8” from the horizontal dotted line). Draw a curve from the intersection of the dotted lines to this point to create the arm hole.

Step Nine: Shape the Bodice

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

This is the step I neglected to do originally. Draw a line Z in from the right side of the rectangle. Draw a straight line from the bottom of the armhole to Z.

Step Ten: Add Seam Allowances, Cut Out, Mark Fold Line

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

You now have your basic bodice-front pattern. Add a 1/4” seam allowance (or larger, if you prefer) around the whole thing and cut it out. Mark on “Fold” on the side of the pattern opposite the sleeve, to remind yourself to cut it out on a fold.

Step Eleven: Create the Bodice Back

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

You will create the back of the bodice the exact same way, except you will change Step Five as follows: Draw a line that is 1” from the top and create a sharply curved (almost right angle) line from N to this point.

All other steps will be the same.

10_cutout-back

DIY Chevron Dress: The Skirt

The skirt for this dress is a simple half circle skirt. I have seen some tutorials online for this, but in my opinion they all over complicate the issue. People who are afraid of math need not fear, there is a very simple formula you can use. Here are simple steps for drafting the half circle skirt:

Step One: Calculate Circumference

In the fourth measurement I had you take before, I told you to write down the measurument you took from around the chest (below the bust).

All you need to do is take that measurement and divide it by 3.14 (aka, Pi.)

This will give you a number with a lot of decimals, just round of all those decimals to the nearest .25 (ie 9, 9.25, 9.5, or 9.75) and label this number L

For example, my chest measurement was 31”. 31 divided by 3.14 is about 9.87. I rounded this to 9.75 to have 9.75” = L

Step Two: Plot the Waist Line

11_draw-L

You will need a much larger piece of paper for this, I just pieced some newspaper together with tape. I wanted a fairly short skirt, so my overall paper length was a little over 30” long.

From one corner of your paper, mark a line that is L from the top and L from the left.

Step Three: Plot the Hemline

Decide how long you want your skirt to be, then mark a line that far from L on both the top and side of your paper.

Step Four: Draw the curves

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Tie a long, inelastic piece of string (such as dental floss) to a marker. Holding your marker at one of the L points, hold the other end of the string taught at the top left corner of the paper. Keeping the marker straight, draw an arc from L to L.

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Repeat this process from your hemline points.

Step Five: Add Seam and Hem Allowances, Cut it out, Mark the Fold

DIY Chevron Dress: Tutorial by Un Petit Squab

Using the same string and marker process, draw an arc 1/4” (or your chosen seam allowance) closer to the corner of the paper from the waist line mark fro the seam allowance.

Then, draw an arc that is 1/2” (or however large you’d like your hem to be) further from the corner on the outside of the whole skirt deal. Cut out these outer lines for your pattern. One one edge of the skirt, mark “Fold” to remind yourself to put that side on a fold when cutting it out.

When all is said and done, you should have three pattern pieces. Easy easy easy.