The Collar on the VOT Dress

I had a question in my email asking about the collar's construction...so here goes...

As you know this dress was suppose to be a simple sheath dress.  I liked the fabric, I thought it would make a great layering piece...dress/cardigan combination...but somewhere between the thinking and the cutting out something else occurred.

I've been seeing a lot of those retro collars and I thought this would be the perfect time to add one to the dress.  I thought it would play off well against the embellished band.  So I went looking for a collar pattern and since so many of my vintage patterns have collars, I started with one of them.  This one to be exact:

Simplicity 6985

I measured the pattern against my neckline and it was way too short.  So I added some to the pattern piece to get this:

Then I cut 4 pieces from the fashion fabric.  Sewed 2 together without adding interfacing.  I didn't want a stiff collar ~ so no interfacing.  Then I played with the collars by pinning them down starting at the center back of the dress.  I was trying to get an offset affect.  I finally achieved that by pinning one collar flat and then pinning the other on top.  Flipping a piece of the collar back onto itself and gathering it up.  All of this was then basted down.

The original vintage pattern had facing pieces.  I did not want facing pieces in a dress with a lining.  So I went digging through the bias tape drawer and pulled out the brown/tan striped bias binding.  It was applied to the top of the collar with a 1/2" seam allowance.  Then I trimmed the seam down and wrapped the bias binding under the seam.  All of this was pressed into place.  Press a section of the collar, use a lot of steam and a clapper...let it set...and then move to the next section of the collar.

After the pressing, it was pinned in place and the binding was handstitched down.  It made a much nicer and cleaner finish for the neckline, imho, than the facing pieces from the pattern.  The final step to give the collar a little va-va-voom will be the large covered button made from a piece of the embellished band.

Finally, there was another question about how I buy patterns.  If I purchase them just for the details? 

Definitely!  *LOL*  I purchase them for details, for inspiration, for the instructions (especially the vintage ones!).  And quite a few of them I purchase believing that some day I will make a garment from them!  I guess that would be true if I stopped fiddling around with my TNT patterns!

I get home so late in the evening that I won't be working on this dress again until the weekend.  So pics of me in the dress this weekend after all of the finishing details are completed...I promise!

...as always, more later!