Hints for Perfect Collars

Pattern - Love Notions Melody Dolman
Skill Level - Intermediate
Fabric - l'oiseau fabrics - Elise: Seersucker
Skills - stay stitching, pressing, interfacing, using a clapper

Love Notions' newest pattern is a dolman - and what a terrific pattern to have in your collection for cool, comfortable summer wear!  Made with woven apparel fabric, this blouse is actually a fairly quick sew.  The only things which might slow you down are buttons and the collar.  We've talked about buttons before, so this time I'm going to concentrate on the collar.

There's a link to an excellent video right in the pattern's tutorial but I'll toss in a few hints to help make things even easier.  I used a lovely, light cotton/viscose seersucker from l'oiseau fabrics to make mine.

Stay Stitching

The neck opening is stay stitched to prevent it from stretching.  This is especially important if you're using a light fabric - as I did.  I lengthened my stitch from 2.5 to 3.5 and ran the stitching line slightly inside the 3/8" seam allowance.

Interfacing

The collar is interfaced on one collar piece.  Often you will find that after the interfacing has been applied, there is a slight difference between the 2 pieces - the interfaced piece may be slightly smaller than the un-interfaced piece.

If the difference is slight, pin at each collar point and then pin evenly along the outside length of the collar.  There may be slight bulging between the pins and you really don't want tucks on the outside of your collar!

Now take it to your steam iron and press.  This will cause the fabric to contract slightly and now you'll find it's nice and flat.

But we're not out of the woods yet.  You can still get tucks!  When you stitch the collar pieces together, have the interfaced side on top.  This way, the sewing machine's foot can't accidentally push the top fabric and cause a tuck.  The feed dogs pull the under fabric through evenly.

After you've trimmed the seam allowance and turned the collar right side out, it's time to press.  Now I use a handy tool my husband made for me - a clapper.  A clapper is just a block of hardwood that you slap on the fabric after applying steam.  First I press the collar so that the seam line is at the very edge of the piece.  Now to get things really sharp, I use the clapper.

I press with the iron, lift it off and put the clapper on the bit just pressed.  That holds the steam on the fabric and gives me a very sharp edge.  I'm ready to topstitch.  And a clapper is a handy tool to have anywhere you want precise pressing - like with darts or hems.

Stitching on the Collar

One last hint is how I stitch the collar on the bodice.  I usually have the bodice on the bottom and the collar on top.  I do it this way, because my collar is now pretty solid with the interfacing up, while the neck portion of the bodice is less stable so I want it next to the feed dogs.  However, unless you are very careful in your stitching, it's easy to get tucks. 

My fingers do the work for me as I slowly stitch the neckline, smoothing the bodice under the collar out of the way and feeling for any possible tucks under the collar with my fingertips as it feeds through.  It's actually a good habit to get into for any sewing or serging.

And now you only have a couple more simple step before you have your collar on - the blouse is nearly finished!  And look at that heart shape!  You can certainly tell it's a Love Notions pattern and it has all the usual hard work and care behind it that we have come to expect!

The Love Notions Melody Dolman is an excellent addition to your summer wardrobe.  You can use a variety of light to medium weight apparel woven fabrics to get just the blouse to make the summer heat more bearable.  You can get the Melody Dolman through my affiliate link below.

Love Notions Melody Dolman