DIY: Cowl Neck Dresses

Here are some photos of the pattern I drafted for my cowl neck dress video.

This is my standard fitted bodice block stacked on top of the first draft cowl neck pattern to give you a shape comparison. The centre front is the long straight edge on the right, so the pattern should be aligned to fabric that has been folded along its bias. My bodice block has no seam allowance, but the draft pattern had an extra 1 cm added along the bottom and side for sewing.

This is the first draft of my cowl neckline (and an abundance of tape holding it together). As seen in the video, this one was too loose on the sides of my body, as well as the cowl hanging too low in front. This might have worked if I was going for a plunge neckline but I wanted something closer to a sweetheart depth.

To adjust to draft 2, first we folded the sides in to fix how loose it was at my armpits (red solid line). Then we measured the length of the original armhole and migrated that to match the new side seam, using the armhole length as a guide for maintaining the same armhole size (blue dashed line). Finally, we drew a curve that connected the armhole to to cowl neck flap end (yellow dashed and dotted line). This final curve needs to be a straight continuation of the armhole at the beginning (see where the blue dash meets the yellow dash), and meet the centre front at a perpendicular angle at the end (see where the yellow dot meets the end of the pattern, the centre front).

Watch how I put it together here!