How To: Collars

I know that most people that sew have made something with a collar at some point. When I took my most recent sewing class we made collared shirts. I made the mistake of following the instructions that came with my pattern. My fantastic teacher showed us all another way to do collars. It is just a little bit different, but I think it looks nicer as a finished look. The following is the instructions that my teacher gave us.

Also, let me say that most patterns call for some kind of interfacing. I did not have any available for these pictures, but I will mention it when it is applicable.

The first thing pattern instructions tell you to do is cut 2 collar pieces out of your fabric and 1 piece of interfacing. Above I have 2 pieces cut from fabric. I did not use a pattern piece, but cut pieces that are approximate to what you would see in a pattern. And like i stated earlier, I did not cut an interfacing piece.

What I have done above is chosen one of my pieces to be my "under collar" It is hard to see in the picture, but I designated my chosen piece by putting an "X" made out of pins on it. It is the top piece in the picture.

After having chosen an under collar, I trimmed the 2 short sides and the top side by 1/4". I did not trim the side that gets attached to the shirt.

The next step is attaching the interfacing. I prefer fusible interfacing. It is nice because you lay it on the fabric and iron it on. Easy peasy. When you cut the interfacing, cut 1/2" off all the way around. Then center it on the under collar and iron it on. (I am going to assume you too are using fusible interfacing)

The next step is to sew the top and under collars together. Line up the tops and sides so the ends meet. This will NOT lay flat because one piece is larger than the other. Sewing the sides will be easy. The difficult part is sewing the tops together. When you are doing the tops, try to pull them flat against each other as much as you can. This means your under collar will be stretched further to make ends meet and lay flat against the top collar. Use a lot of pins. They will help keep it stretched as you sew. In the above picture, the under collar is facing up. You will notice that the collar curves up at the edges. This is a good thing.

Now you need to trim. Cut the top corners on a diagonal as close to where top and side seams cross as you can without cutting the corner itself. Then, you will trim down the under collar piece on the top and sides fairly close to the stitch, and the top collar piece leaving it a bit longer. DO NOT trim the bottom side that attaches to the shirt! That needs to stay the way it is so that it will attach properly to the shirt.

Finally, it is time to flip your collar inside right and press. Make sure to push out your corners! When you press, line up the bottom edges first. This will force the seam to pull around to one side (the side your under collar is on). When you are all done pressing, you should see no seams on your top collar. This makes the collar look neater as a finished product. Not only that, you will not have to worry about any top stitching to keep the seam in place. If you want a top stitch to decorate... well, that is up to you.

I hope that this will help you all with collars. I know that after having done one collar the way the pattern says and then doing one this way, this one looks a lot neater. It is really not that much more work than the way the instructions say.

If anyone has any questions, comments, or needs clarification on anything, please send me a note or leave a comment and we will get it figured out!

How To: Flat Felled Seam (Jean Seam)

Right now I am doing these quick "How To" posts because I am uncomfortable sitting at my sewing table for extended periods of time. I will start back on more clothing projects after I have my baby and things settle down a little bit. But, I really do like posting so I thought I would post some of the things that I learned in school.

Today's "How To" is the Flat Felled Seam. It is also known as the Jeans or Levis seam. This seam is very simple and gives a nice finished look to anything that you make out of denim.

First I just cut two squares of denim. About the same size.

Right side = dark. Wrong side = light.

Step Number Two: Sew WRONG sides together with a single stitch so that the seam allowance is facing out with the right side of the denim. Pressing the material after every step is not totally needed, but recommended. It helps get cleaner lines and makes it a bit easier to work with. I finger pressed these and thats why they don't lay as flat and as neat as they probably should.

Step Three: Trim one side down to almost the original straight seam. When I choose which side I am trimming, I trim what would be the "back". So in this case I trimmed as if the right side piece was the back of my pants/skirt.

Step Four: Lay the uncut side of the seam over the side that you cut. Iron flat. Then you are going to take and fold under the edge of the seam to make the finished edge. I chose about 1/4" to turn under. You can choose whatever you want depending on how wide you want the stitches to be apart for your particular project. Once you have turned the edge under, iron it again to flatten the edge to make it nice and crisp. Again, mine doesn't look as neat because I just finger pressed it down.

And finally, Step Five: Stitch the second seam. Just run a straight stitch close to the folded under edge of the material. This makes the double stitch finish that everyone recognizes on jeans, and it tacks down the open side.

I like this seam finish because it is very clean looking. It is also very simple. If you need any clarification or have any questions, please feel free to send me a message!

How To: Fake Layering

One of the things that I learned in school was how to make it look like something is layered when it really isn't. This is VERY simple in my opinion. You really only need to know how to stitch straight lines. In this "How To" entry I am going to show you how to do the fake layers. We are going to go through this like we were adding to the bottom of an existing shirt. The "shirt" is going to be the angel fabric and the layering will be the solid blue.

For the demo, I just cut 2 pieces of each fabric the same size as each other. Again, Shirt = angel. Layer = blue.

Step One: Sew right sides together with whatever seam allowance you want. I use 5/8 in. Then serge the seam allowance to make it look all pretty and finished. If you don't have a serger, don't sweat it. You don't REALLY need to. I just like the finished look.

Step Two: Create the upper layer. Take your shirt and place it right side to right side with the layer. Where you want your the fold (or hem) of your shirt. Fold the shirt back up on the hem fold wrong side to wrong side. Make sure that the serged edge is up underneath the shirt part so that when we stitch it, it will be secured and out of the way.

Step Three: Stitch the edge. What I did is two straight stitches side by side to give the finished double needle look that a lot of "store bought" clothes have. I measured the first row of stitches by placing the edge of my foot on the edge of the fabric. Then the second row of stitches by placing the edge of the presser foot on the first row of stitches and sewing another straight line.

Below are two pictures of the finished product. The first is how it looks on the right side. The second is how it looks on the wrong side. I apologize for the lack of straight lines on the back. My machine made the *chunka*chunka* noise and freaked out... didn't realize my bobbin thread was running out. Anywho, the bottom is why you make sure the serged edge is folded up behind the shirt. The top/secure stitching holds it in place.

If this were a real shirt/skirt/whatever you would then hem the blue part for the finished look. But because this was focused on making the layered look I didn't bother with a bottom hem. If anyone has any questions and needs clarification on any of these steps, please feel free to message me. I will be more than happy to clear things up. Hope this gives some easy creative ideas to people to add a new dimension to an old piece of clothing.