V-Neck Drama Dress!

September 16, 2019

Hi friends!! Today we are hacking a V-Neck window into the Drama Dress! I have a ready-to-wear top that has this look and I had to figure out how to copy it, it is such a cute style with just a little sass. You can use your preferred dress style (slim or swing) and any sleeve (or sleeveless) with this hack, so let’s get started.

First, cut your dress front and dress back, sleeves, and facing (we will come back to the band later). Measure on your front facing pattern piece how far down you want your V to end. I did this by holding the piece up to myself, matching it to the top of my shoulder and adding a pin to mark the depth. Using tailors chalk, mark that point and remove the pin. You can serge/finish the bottom of the facing piece now.

Next, fold the facing in half RST, and use a ruler to draw a line from the point you marked up to the neckline, where it starts to curve towards the center.

Cut the line you drew to create your V neck.

Using the piece you cut out as a template, place it on top of the dress front in order to cut the same exact shape out of your dress front.

Before you discard these pieces, mark the spot you started cutting with tailors chalk. This is where the band will detach to stretch across the front.

Place your facing and dress front right sides together, and surge, leaving 2 inches on either side of the V.

Sew these center few inches with a sewing machine and a straight stitch. Then snip the center of the V, close to (but not through) your stitching. This helps it create a nice sharp V when you turn it out.

Turn the facing and dress out so they are wrong sides together, and baste the two pieces together to secure them. This will help a LOT when you attach sleeves.
Moving on to attach at the shoulder - you’ll notice there is an extra 1/4” (since the facing and dress front are sewn together and took up that space), so match the front to the back at the neckline and use your scissors or rotary cutter to trim the 1/4”.

Sew dow the side seams per the instructions.
Now for the neck binding! We are going to recalculate band by measuring the front and back neckline, then multiply the total by .9. This is because we are using a binding rather than a band, and want it to be a bit longer.

Moving forward, I assume you’ve sewn a binding before. There are more detailed instructions on this in the keyhole section of the Drama Dress tutorial if you need a quick refresher! With RST, sew the ends of the binding together, and use this as your center back. Match to dress center back RST. With binding piece laying flat/open (not folded in half!), clip the rest of the way around. Make sure you pull slightly and pin to shoulder seams, stretching your binding. Then pull slightly and pin to the marks where you started your V cut out. This makes sure your binding is evenly distributed and you’re not cutting into the extra binding needed for the open V space.

Sew from one V starting point around to the other. If serging, thread your tails using a needle. Because I am still fairly fiddly with bindings, I use a strip of wonder tape across the front raw edge, to secure it evenly.

Next, we’ll fold the binding around to the back and fold in again, creating 4 layers of binding around the seam.

Use a ton of clips to clip all the way around!

Next, use your preferred stretch stitch or overstitch to top stitch all the way around. My secret weapon? I use a stitch-in-the-ditch foot and moved my needle tot he right to ensure an even topstitch all the way around!

When you come to the place your V starts, your band will create a bit of a corner. Make sure to turn the piece and stitch across the front of the binding.