Friday 6 June 2008

How to attach collar, V7903

I am making my first, trial version of the Sandra Betzina "Today's Fit" blouse pattern, Vogue 7903. I am doing this because I have mislaid the New Look pattern from which I planned to make my Batik blouse for Elizabeth's June Capsule contest at Stitcher's Guild!
I am quite liking the pattern, but I had a little bit of confusion with the collar. The collar has a seperate stand, and I do not have a great deal of experience with this type of collar. I have used Lyn Cook's article in a very old issue of Australian Stitches Magazine for the few Kwik Sew and Top Kids shirts with collar stands that I have made previously. As I am trying to improve my sewing skills, I slavishly followed the instructions for this entirely different method(excellent instructions for a Vogue Pattern) and was doing just fine until I had to finish the attachment of the collar to the collar stand, and the outside collar stand to the neck.
First I managed to sew the collar stand so that I could not turn it inside out. This was obviously wrong! The instructions ask you to fold the collar and front of the blouse inside the collar, but I had managed to fold it to the wrong place. The instructions then say to sew around the collar stand end (I used a cardboard template that I had cut out to the shape of the stitching line, so that both stand curves would look the same). This bit I could manage! The instructions then ask you to sew an inch into the collar stand and neck seam allowance a la Margaret Islander. This is the other spot where I went wrong. I am a sewing ignoramus, and know nothing about Margaret Islander. I was too lazy to look up her method, but after unpicking, I think I have worked it out, so have posted some pictures of the steps for my future reference.
1. Fold collar and front of blouse back towards the shoulder seam, parallel to the center front. Sew around the collar stand, and into the neck and collar stand seam without catching the collar and front
 

View of inside of blouse after turning the above, isn't it tidy!
 

Pinning outside of blouse after turning
 

Finished collar and stand after hand stitching collar stand to neck. I like this result very much.
 
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2 comments:

Claire said...

Never having sewn a shirt I cannot help you there. The fabric is very pretty. Nice job working through the collar issue. Many times searching the Threads site will produce good instructions on a sewing technique. But....I think Gigi or Els has a collar technique over at the Sewing Divas blog.

Faye Lewis said...

I just found your tutorial on sewing a collar that is attached to a band...which is one of my weaknesses. Thanks, I'm going to read this very carefully.