design observed :: day 8

Lesson learned:  Saying that you will do something "later today" is like inviting chaos to prevent you from doing it. 

Ahem.

Now that we've got everything designed, drafted, and cut out, we need to think for a minute about the order of sewing operations.  The fact that we don't have commercial sewing pattern instructions is a double-edged sword.  We don't have to play by their rules, but we don't get to lean on them, either. 

Still, it's not too difficult to figure out.  If we write down all the steps we need to do and fiddle with them for a few minutes, it'll become pretty clear what has to be done first, next, and so on.  Like a jigsaw puzzle, kinda.  Like our pattern layout puzzle.

Sparing you my rambling thought process, here's the ordered list I came up with:

1) Placket

2) Shoulder seams

3) Collar

4) Sleeve hem & trim

5) Sleeve/armhole seam

6) Hem facing

7) Front panel

8) Tab

Now that I have an outline, I just go down the list.

1) Placket

Instructions here.

Check.

Shoulder Seams

Sew from neckline to armhole.

Collar

Staystitch on the seamline all the way around the neckline.

See how the presser foot flattens the corduroy?  Since we'll be putting a collar over this stitching, I'm not going to worry about it, but on other seams in corduroy you can steam the fabric with your iron to remove those marks.  I've marked the center front with a pin.

Now, match each upper collar to each under collar.  My upper collars are brown, the unders are green.  Here I've pinked and pressed the seam, and marked the fronts with a pin.

Because a lot of this round seam here is bias, it's really prone to stretching around while you're sewing.  So that if you sew one collar from front to back and the other the other way, they'll end up different shapes.  Make sure you do them both the same way.  I sewed both from the back to the front.

Turn the collars right side out.

Here I've fooled around with the shape of the collar by pulling on the (green) under collar until I like the way the collar drapes.  This is where you have the chance to avoid that sticking-up collar look that all of us hate to see on our newly finished clothes.  I pinned it in place, and then basted it at the neckline.  Basting from front to back on both seems to work better.

Then we'll baste the collar in place on the neckline seamline.  Again, we'll have to sew from the back to the front, then go back and sew from back to front on the other side.  If we don't, we risk the collar twisting around the neckline and ending up off-center.  

By the way, do you see my mistake here?  (I can see it clear as day, now that I've seen the finished collar, but I missed it at this point.)

Now I'm binding the neckline with a bias strip in brown.  To do this, I cut a strip that was the length of the neckline plus an inch or so to fold under at the back, and five times the width of the seam (1/4").  Five, because I need two seam allowances, one width to wrap up the right side of the seam, one width to wrap down the wrong side, and an extra bit because the fabric's bulky. 

First I pressed under 1/4" on one long edge of the bias strip.

Leaving 1/2" hanging over at the edge of the placket (I'll show you in a second) I sewed the strip to the wrong side along the seamline. 

Then I trimmed the seamline a bit and folded the edge over to the front, covering the neckline seam there.

See where I left it hanging over at the placket?  When I turn it to the front, I trim that and fold the edge under like this:

Now I edgestitch right along that folded edge on the right side, all the way around, and end up with this:

Now we can all see my mistake!  I matched the collar center fronts at the seam allowance instead of at the seamline.  So that when I sewed the binding over them, they didn't meet in the center.  Not that it ruins the look or anything, but something to remember for next time. 

Next time we'll move on to the sleeves.

Anything unclear? Let me know. 

Thanks!

~Erin~

Comments

[Marthe]

You write such wonderful instructions. I actually caught your mistake... I've made similar mistakes enough times myself that I've started catching it most of the time. I haven't done the Peter Pan collar before... is it very difficult? You make it look so easy.

[Kerri]

Wow. I didn't notice the mistake until you told us what it was. It looks great. This is so helpful.

[Heather]

It looks so cute. I'm enjoying seeing everything come together!

[children's fashion workshop]

This is only one type of Peter Pan collar. There are others that attach in various ways, but this is the easiest way I've found to do it. It's not so hard if you just remember to sew in the right direction. (And match the center fronts at the seamline!)