Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Cutting collar in one piece

I’m working on my blouse (actually it’s almost finished) and have cut the upper- and under collar as one pattern piece. I did this before, didn’t use it last time, simply because I didn’t think of it. This way there is only one small seam at the under collar, the sides of the collar have no seam. This reduces bulk.

In the Burda pattern I use the collar is half a collar, that must be cut twice on the fold. For this way of working you need two of these half collar patterns.

For my previous blouse from the same pattern, I had added  1 cm seam allowances to the pattern. At the side of the pattern this will have to be removed.

The next picture shows the two pieces that are taped together at the seam (pointed side of collar), you see the seam allowances overlapping the pattern. At the right side it will be cut on the fold (center of upper collar), on the left part (under collar) a seam allowance must be added.

The point of the pattern piece is straightened.

Fold the fabric and place the pattern on the fold and cut. As you can see the under collar will be on the bias. How much will depend on the angle of the collar.

Mark the corners by clipping there.

After cutting and in one layer:

Interface the collar with a thin interfacing.Both upper and under collar are interfaced, so the interfacing mustn’t be too thick. Of course you can interface only the upper collar, or not interface the seam allowances (which I will do next time again, as I mostly do).

Sew the center back seam and press open..

Stitch the long side of the collar and trim the seam allowance. Cut the corner in a diagonal (not in the picture)

 

Press the seam open till the point (I love my tailor board for this!)

Turn the collar and press (preferably the upper collar seam a bit over the edge, so that the under collar will not be visible.

 

Topstitch the collar

 

The back of the collar, you can see that the front is visible at the top, just a tiny bit so that the under collar is not visible.

Hope this is helpful to some of you.

17 comments:

Rebecca said...

Great tutorial! I'll have to try it out sometime.

Rose said...

Thanks for the tutorial. I'll have to plan a blouse so that I can use it!

Lori said...

Thank you so much, I do my collars like this and is sure makes such a difference. I like all the pictures, it helps me know I am doing it the right way.

katherine h said...

Great tutorial. That method is new to me. Thanks Sigrid

arnysews said...

Thanks for posting this, I'll have to try it.

AllisonC said...

Never seen this before, it's a really clever idea thanks for sharing. Will you be adding to your excellent tutorials site, I go there a lot.

Gail said...

You are the tutorial queen! Very useful and thank you.

Elaray said...

I've used this method in the past and I loved the results. Problem is, I always forget about it until it's too lat

Nancy K said...

I was going to do this for the blouse I just cut out and totally forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me. I may have enough fabric to recut the collar. Good, clear pictures of this too.

Branka said...

Very helpful, thank you so much for this tutorial!

melissa said...

Sigrid, this is a fantastic technique! I totally didn't understand what you were doing until you moved the seam to the centre and then a I got a big Ah-HA! moment! I'll have to remember this for later.

(Also, I really like that fabric!)

Cennetta said...

Beautiful. I must get a tailor board.

Ann's Fashion Studio said...

I like the fabric you are using. It is very pretty.

I have seen Ron Collins (Sandra Betzina) demonstrate this method on one of their videos,and have wanted to try it. It is nice to know it works so well and it looks great.

Thank you for the great tutorial.

Tina said...

Wow Sigrid, what a clever technique! I will try it with the next shirt I make.

Summerset said...

Very clever technique. I'll have to try this one out!

Tany said...

That's ingenious! I will definitely remember this for future use!

Anonymous said...

Hi I heard of doing the collar this way and was so excited to see your tutorial! I will be doing all my collars this way. Thanks for the pictures and crystal clear instructins.