Collar Drafting Tutorials

A few weeks ago, I taught a class on drafting collars. I had such a wonderful time. It's always nice to see faces light up and realize that a basic pattern can be changed so easily. But, I realized that I have not made it easy to find the tutorials. At the moment, I am having a difficult time trying to find how to add a new tab to the navigation bar, but it is coming, hopefully, later today. In the meantime, here are the collars with links to the tutorials. Tomorrow I will be adding a tutorial on how to draft a hood. Then on Thursday, I will do the full drafting tutorial of the jacket I made HERE. 

The Mandarin Collar is a wonderful collar that can easily be drafted. It's a great collar that adds a little interest to the neck. You can find the tutorial HERE. 

The collar below is the Revere Collar. A very easy collar to draft. It looks a little more complicated as I added the bias trim around the collar and down the front of the blouse. You can find the tutorial for this collar HERE. 

The Peter Pan Collar. In the post that I did yesterday, the free Mary Quant dress pattern had 2 variations of the Peter Pan collar, one with a rounded edge, the other with a point. Both drafted the exact same way. You can find the tutorial on drafting the Peter Pan Collar HERE. 

The Sailor Collar is such a great collar for summer. It looks great on a dress, a tunic top, as well as a hoodie. You can find the tutorial HERE. 

I did 2 versions of the Shawl Collar. The collar below is the narrow version. The narrowness of the collar has nothing to do with how big the collar is in front, but how it lays on the back neck. Below is the Narrow Shawl Collar. You can find the tutorial HERE.  

Below is the wide version of the Shawl Collar. You can find this tutorial HERE.

Here's a picture of me in the dress. I absolutely love wearing this dress in the summer. Just throw it on and go!

The Raised Neckline. While this is not a traditional collar, it gives the appearance of a collar. Very dramatic, and quite lovely. You can find the tutorial HERE. This is by far one of my favorite necklines.

As soon as I can figure out how to add the new tab to the header bar at the top of the blog page, the tutorials will be all the easier to find. Technology :/

By the way, if by chance you do download the Mary Quant dress, any of these collars can be applied to that pattern. So play around and have some fun!

I am off to take Mr. Berkley for his initiation visit for daycare. He really doesn't need actual daycare, but I am doing it because he is such a social boy and I think he will have a blast playing with the other dogs. Gracie is at a point in her life that she would rather be left alone :( I'll try to take a few pictures and share with you. 

Cute story;
My husband thought that Berkley was going to daycare yesterday. He came home, found Berkley here, and I was gone. He told me that he asked Berkley, "why are you here? Did you get kicked out of daycare?" :) Hopefully all will go well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Rhonda

One Pattern So Many Ways, All In One Place/A Great Design Resource

I love patterns! There was a time when I couldn't wait for the new Vogue pattern catalog to come out. I would go to the store and literally sit for at least an hour(if not more!)and dream over the patterns. Better than a Christmas wishbook for me! 

Then...I went to school and learned how to design and draft my own patterns. One thing I learned is that a good basic design is really all you need, well that and some instructions :)

A while back, I took Butterick 5678, which is sadly out of print, but available on sites like Ebay and Etsy, and showed you how to take it from a basic shirt and add lots of design details. The instructions are a little difficult to find as they are all over the blog, so I thought I would consolidate them all here on this post. That way, if there is something you would like to try, you can easily find it. 

This was the first piece that I did. The basic shirt was used, but a Peter Pan collar added and a change in the sleeve. You can find the instructions for the Perter Pan collar HERE, and the sleeve instructions HERE.

While this looks rather complicated, it's really quite easy. The collar tutorial can be found HERE, and the sleeve tutorial HERE. 

This is a favorite of mine, the raised neckline. The collar tutorial can be found HERE, and the sleeve tutorial HERE.

This is a wide variation of the shawl collar. Look closely and you'll see that the collar sits up a little higher on the back of the neck. This is one of my favorite dresses for summer. The tutorial for the collar can be found HERE.

This is the narrow version of the shawl collar. You can find the tutorial for the collar HERE, the sleeve tutorial HERE, and the circular skirt tutorial HERE. 

I also showed you how to take the pattern and turn it into a summer jacket and add pockets HERE. The sailor collar tutorial is HERE. The sleeve has a turned up cuff, and that tutorial can be found HERE.

And finally, my favorite of all!!!!, my zebra dress. You can see my design process HERE.

This is a dress that I find every excuse to wear. 

Although the pattern I used is out of print, plenty of basic shirt patterns can be found. Any of these designs can be used with a pattern that has a good neckline, the shoulder seam sits at the shoulder, and has a princess line seam.

I think it's about time to choose another pattern and have some fun with it. I'll put that on the schedule for January. In the meantime, I'll start looking around for a good basic pattern and deciding how I can manipulate it. If you have any ideas, let me know :)

Linda's Raised Collar, It's Beautiful!

Good Morning Everyone!!! I am working on a new Fabulous Free Pattern Friday piece that I hope to post a little later today, but a shout out and a big thank you needs to go out to Linda of http://seamswell.blogspot.ca/2014/02/butterick-5678-modified-neckline.html. As I scrolled through a piece that she posted yesterday, I came across this top

and my first thought was, "wow I love that neckline!" Now in all honesty, I am very bad about scrolling through blogs and looking at the pictures. I guess I'm a picture kinda gal!! I've always loved picture books:) As I scrolled through, my name caught my eye and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Linda had purchased Butterick 5678. You may remember that I did a series of collar posts for Sew News and used this pattern as my base.

This is the collar I drafted for the tutorial.

Linda said that she was very happy with how the blouse turned out. I do love her neckline!

If you would like to check out the tutorial I did on the raised neckline, you can find it here, http://www.sewnews.com/blogs/sewing/2013/05/28/rhonda-buss-the-raised-collar-neckline-tutorial/
As I said, I did an entire series of collar posts and you can find those here, http://www.sewnews.com/blogs/sewing/?s=Rhonda+Buss
Thanks so much Linda for taking a chance on the collar. I'm truly honored.
If by chance any of you give a sleeve or Free Pattern Friday piece a try, let me know. I always love to see what you've done and even more, I love to brag on your work!!!

The Many Faces Of Butterick 5678

On May 8th, I posted the first collar tutorial on the Sew News blog using Butterick 5678.

The first collar was the Peter Pan collar. A very classic and yet easy collar to draft.

Next we did the Revere Collar. Another basic collar, but I showed you how to add the bias trim and make it look all the more special.

The third collar is not an actual collar, but it's a neckline treatment that looks good on almost everyone, The Raised Neckline.

Then we did the shawl collar. This was the narrow variation. Rather than making another shirt, I chopped the pattern off at the waist and added a 1/2 circle skirt.

That brings us to the new collar which is another shawl collar, but the wide variation. Once again I opted for a dress rather than a shirt. By extending the pattern, the shirt becomes a great little shirt dress.

So with that said, the new post is up on the Sew News blog!!!! I'm so excited!!! Thanks so much for your comments and for checking out the posts. I will be doing three more collars in this series. You can find the new post here,  http://www.sewnews.com/blogs/sewing/2013/06/19/rhonda-buss-wide-shawl-collar-tutorial/
If you would like to see all the posts that I have done for Sew News, here is the link, http://www.sewnews.com/blogs/sewing/tag/rhonda-buss/
Thanks again for being so supportive!
Rhonda

The Raised Neckline Collar Tutorial

The tutorial for this collar is up on the Sew News blog! You can find it here,  http://www.sewnews.com/blogs/sewing/2013/05/28/rhonda-buss-the-raised-collar-neckline-tutorial/

If you are enjoying the collar tutorials, be sure to let Sew News know. They just might invite me back for more!