Snow Day!

We woke this morning to this in our back yard. Considering that we live very close to sea level this is impressive! All the kids' schools were closed so they promptly went out to play in the snow with the neighbours. I think they're watching a movie next door at the moment. I love our lovely neighbourhood!

So, since my plans to do a couple of errands in town followed by a visist to my parents came to a screeching halt, I figured I could SEW! I've been working on the jean jacket draft, but I'll leave that for another post, when I've made the next toile. Meantime today I worked on a corduroy jean jacket (from the same pattern as Nicholas' one) for my nephew. I thought I'd show how I do collars to ensure that they sit nicely.

In order to sit well, the upper collar needs to be slightly bigger than the under collar. To achieve this, when pinning the two together I make sure that the edge of the under collar just peeks out. You can see the upper collar is sort of wrinkling because it's a little bigger.

Then after clipping the corners, turning and topstitching, I sew along the neck edge. To ensure room for turn-of-cloth (ie, the upper collar sitting smoothly over the undercollar) I fold the collar to create the room it needs. This edge is then pinned.

When I sew it I fold it as well, which helps keep it even.

The finished collar looks like this. You can just make out that it appears to have a wrinkle along it's length. When sewn to the jacket it will fold over nicely and sit flat against the jacket rather than have points which stick up.

Easy! It's one of those techniques I had to learn the hard way, and it makes a big difference to the appearance of a finished garment.