Crazy Collars

I love a great collar.  And this suit definitely has one!

The main reason I decided to go all in with the tailoring on this jacket is that very collar.  The mid-weight cotton has quite a bit of drape and not enough structure to keep the proper shape.  Hair canvas seemed like a good bet.

The upper portion of the collar is underlined with silk organza, and the under collar with hair canvas.  I knew the under collar needed to be pad-stitched.  The question was, what to do about all of those darts.

I wanted a lot of body through the collar, but not the bulk that multiple layers of hair canvas would give.

The stitching lines are traced on the hair canvas and organza.  The underlinings are then basted to the cotton along those traced lines.

The darts are removed from the hair canvas, and those cut edges get catch-stitched to the cotton.

Next, the darts are pinned and basted.

And then they are finally stitched!

Once they are pressed, the darts are catch-stitched in place.  (The darts are balanced by pressing the under collar ones in the opposite direction to the upper collar ones.)

The same goes for the silk organza, although none of that gets cut away.

Which leaves me with this . . .

And it looks like the hair canvas is doing a fine job of shaping!

I am going to need to count the number of darts on this project because I think it may be an all time record for me!