How to Draft a Tailor Collar

Video Transcript

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In this video, I'm going to show you how I drafted the Tailor collar on this coat. Now, just an aside; I used to call it a jacket. and then I realized it better fits the definition of a coat because it's made from a heavyweight wool and it extends to the mid-thigh. I'm flagging that point because I might sometimes call it a coat,

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sometimes I might call it a jacket. Whichever it is, I'm going to show you how I drafted the Tailor collar portion of the garment.

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But first for a short introduction.

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Hi, my name is Maria. I design my own clothes and draft my own sewing patterns. I began patternmaking at 40 because ready-to-wear clothing was uncomfortable and poorly fitting. To draft patterns that truly fit, you first need a well-fitting block. That was my first and seemingly impossible challenge. Most block making instructions come from the fashion industry, built on assumptions about standard figures. That pushed me to develop my own unique block making system for non-standard figures.

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My bodice block method includes the upper-bust to determine the correct cup size, and my pants system adds the thigh measurement. With a proper block, you can create clothes that fit well in styles you love, using fabrics you choose. So welcome to my channel!

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This is the fashion flat of my Seyran coat, which I'll be using throughout the tutorial as a reference. And you can see there are a lot of panels. That is, vertical design lines. In the photo to the right, because the garment is inside out and not lined, you can see all the panels in the back. And here is a close up of the portion of the front.

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Again you can see the panels. And here are all my final pattern pieces of the coat that I made. However, at the point I'm drafting the Tailor collar, I'm using the full front piece to draft the lapel, and I will end up with a full front piece at the end of this tutorial. Because separating the front pieces into further pattern pieces is something I will do after the drafting of the Tailor collar, and that is not included in this tutorial, of course.

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So the Tailor collar requires four pattern pieces. And I'll show you those first. These are the pattern pieces I'll end up with at the end of the tutorial. Number one is the center front bodice, which includes a grown on lapel. Shown here shaded in the teal color. The second pattern piece is the collar. The third is the under collar and the fourth is the facing.

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So on the left hand side here, those four pattern pieces are shown on the fashion flat. On the right hand side of the corresponding flat pattern pieces; the full front, the collar, the under collar and facing. Now looking at the fashion flat, notice that the yellow section of the lapel, which is shown to the world, is the facing. When the lapel folds back,

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it is the facing that people see, so the facing is an essential part of the Tailor collar. So these are the final four pattern pieces I will end up with at the end of the tutorial. Though in actual fact, the final front pattern pieces used in my coat look like this.

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I drafted this pattern using the jacket block without adding further ease. Normally, coats have extra ease to allow for bulky knits or layers underneath, but I don't need that. I don't wear bulky knits and I don't wear lots of layers. I will only ever be wearing a long sleeve light to medium weight dress under this jacket / coat. Maybe I should call it a Joat!

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Anyway, I don't need extra ease so I will be using the jacket block as it is. There are two adjustments I will make to the bodice front before starting to draft the tailor collar. Those two adjustments are part of the design and I prefer to make those adjustments now. I've cut it off at the Empire Line, and I've moved the side seam down into the waist dart.

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The pink shape you see here is the version that I'll be using as the starting point to draft the tailor collar.

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So to start I will draw a line parallel to the center front. This is the button extension. The distance from the center front line to this new line should be the width of the button you're using, or slightly more so. Some pattern makers suggest adding, for example, one eighth of an inch or a quarter of a centimeter more than the width of the button.

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For this jacket, I'm adding 2.25cm, which is 7/8 of an inch, which is the width of my button, and I'm not adding anything extra. I marked this on the fashion flat so you can see it on the garment. The blue line marks the center front while the pink line is the seam line. The next step is to determine the break point of the jacket.

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The orange arrow shows the break point on my coat. This isn't the same as the neckline depth. It's the spot where the lapel folds back on the front. For my code, I'm placing the break point just below the bust level.

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Now I'm going to mark how far up the neck I want my collar to stand. This is called the collar stand. And I've chosen 2.5cm or one inch, which is pretty standard. On the coat you can see this marked with the yellow arrow. The collar rises up that distance before folding back down. The white arrow shows the section that falls first past down the stand, and then the remainder goes down the center back or across the shoulders.

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Next, I'll draw a line between the two points I've created from the collar stand point down to the break point. The section highlighted in yellow is now redundant. If you're drafting by hand, you could erase it, but I'm just going to make it semi-transparent so you can see the steps are taken. Those grayed out lines won't be used from this point on.

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Now I'll draw the shape of the collar I want. The collar rises 2.5cm or one inch, then folds back down that same distance before lying across the shoulder. I decided I wanted the collar to spread quite wide, so I measured 6.5cm or two and 3/8 of an inch down the shoulder line. Now I want to point something out here, although I've designed it to fall 6.5cm down the shoulder.

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Because the wool is quite heavy weight and bulky, it doesn't fold back flat, and the turn of the cloth means that it falls well short of the 6.5cm shown here. It actually only extends 4.5cm down my shoulder, which is 1.75in. And this actually matters when drafting the collar back, and I'll cover that when we get to it.

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But this is a design. The shape of the color that I started with, the shape you choose. So how far down the shoulder it goes, the shape and width of the lapel, how curved the lapel portion is, etc. is a matter of personal preference. You can look at garments you own or go into shops to see what shapes you like.

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This shape here are drawn include both the collar and the lapel. So I now need to separate them. So I'll draw a line drawn by the red arrow from the notch point to where the neckline and fold line meet. This is the separation point. The orange section is the collar, which will become its own pattern piece, while the green section is the lapel, which will remain part of the bodice front.

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So now if I was drafting this manually, I would fold along the axis line and use a tracing wheel to transfer the shapes onto the underside of the paper. When that paper is unfolded and put flat again, you then draw the reflected shape. So I have now reflected that across the fold axis. After I have done that reflection, I see that I need to redraw the neckline to get a smoother curve.

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So I will draw that smooth curve and this is what I end up with. To make the two pieces clearer, I've shaded them differently. The light orange shows the color stand which goes up and down the neck, while the darker orange shows the portion that sits on the shoulder and chest. The lapel piece shown in green just needs the buttons marked on the center front line.

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The first button is placed at the break point and further buttons as per your preference or design. I will also need to add notches to help when joining the collar to the bodice, but I will do that after I finish drafting the collar.

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So the front part of the collar is drafted that is shaded orange in the slide. The standard practice is to draft the back as an attachment to the front. So to continue from here and draft it on top of the front. So this yellow shaded section is what I will end up with for the back part of the collar.

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But given that it's necessary to do some cutting and spreading to get this final shape, I find it easier to draft the back collar completely separately and come back and join it, or add it to the front shape later - once the back is finished. The first step is to measure the back neckline. Just keep in mind that back collar, same as the front, will go up the neck for one inch 2.5cm, then back down.

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Then it will continue down past the neck and shoulder. To begin, I'll create a rectangle. So I'll quickly show you first what I'm aiming to do with this rectangle before we start, so that you are not confused. I will be opening up one side of this rectangle to cut and spread. This cutting and spreading will get both a curve for the back neck and the necessary length, and cut for the collar edge that sits on the back of the shoulder.

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The width of this rectangle is the back neck measurement. The height of the rectangle on the right hand side is the width of the collar at the shoulder, like the front is made up of the collar stand, the return and then the width of the collar that falls past the neckline. And of course this needs to match the front because that's the shared line where the front and the back of the collar meet.

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So this is where that side of the rectangle would sit if we placed it against the bodice back. Now the left hand side of the rectangle is the center back line. For my coat, the center back measurement is the same as the shoulder measurement, so I end up with a true rectangle as shown.... Or I start with - should I say I START with a true rectangle as shown.

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Now the top side of the rectangle. The edge opposite the neckline represents the collar edge that sits down across the back. So the top edge of the rectangle is the one that needs to be opened by cutting and spreading.

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Now, I said just before that. For me, I start with a true rectangle because the collar width at the back is the same as at the shoulder. But if the collar width at the center back is less than a collar width at the shoulder, as shown here, you wouldn't start with a rectangle. Instead, you'd begin with a tapered shape as shown here.

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In that case, two you still follow the same directions. Making sure, of course, that you do take into account the stand, the return, and how far it goes past the neckline. Again, you open up the side opposite to the neckline. Now this is a very important point. I will not use this curve measurement as the measurement for opening up the collar edge.

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As I mentioned earlier in the tutorial. The turn of the cloth means that the final placement of the cloth edge for me, especially in this case with the heavyweight fabric, is much higher than drafted. The best thing to do is take the measurement of the straight line. If the measurement is too long, your collar might scoop upwards instead of sitting down on your neck, back, and shoulders.

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So even if you are not using a really heavy weight fabric, fabric doesn't usually fold back completely flat. There is a turn of the cloth. Using the straight line measurement gives you a more reliable number to work with. In both cases, whether you start with a rectangle or the tapered shape, the collar shape is cut and spread on that top edge.

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So now for a calculation I take the measurement I actually need. So 16.75cm or 6.56in, and subtract the measurement of the rectangle edge I already have. That leaves me with a difference of 8.5cm or 3.38in. So most of these measurements have been rounded up or down a little. This is the total amount that I need and that needs to be distributed in the cotton spread.

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So I've cut my rectangle into five sections, which means I'll be adding the extra amount into four openings. So I will divide that earlier amount by four. Now remember that the left hand side of the rectangle is the center back. So I'll secure the center back with tape and then open up each section by the calculated amount. I'll pivot the pieces, open up by the calculated amount, secure the next piece and repeat the process until all four sections are spread, and I have the correct measurement on the outer edge.

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I will also need to redraw the outer curve of that collar.

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Here is the final shape after cutting and spreading, with the outer edge now measuring 16.75cm, or 6.6in. Again rounded slightly. Which is the measurement I need. On the right hand side, I'm showing you the result of the cutting and spreading with the tapered shape I covered earlier. The principles and steps are exactly the same, you’re just beginning with a different starting shape, and you will need to redraw that outer edge curve using a curve ruler.

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Now let me flag something, because I'm sure someone will notice that there is a problem here, but it's only a temporary problem. If you are using this kind of shape, you'll need the center back top of the collar shape to be a 90 degree angle. That's because you don't want to end up with this shape for the collar, a dip in the center back.

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Now, having said that, I'm wondering whether this might actually be an interesting design feature. Well, it could be, but it's not the standard shape for the collar. So, I will be dealing with that later on when I'm adding it to the front. At that point, I will make sure that I get that 90 degree angle at the center back.

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So back to my collar. The one that I actually used on my coat.

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I'll take my back collar piece and match it up to the front at the shoulder line to get my final collar shape. The blue outline shows that final collar shape. In order to get a better curve, I might need to re-draw the inner curve. So a little piece of the body's shoulder line gets cut off. But that piece that is cut off is added to the collar piece as shown.

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I need to add notches at the key points where the collar and the bodice lapel join - at the shoulder line, the fold line, and the notch point. Before I go on to separate the collar and create the facing, I'm just going to look at the second collar option, where the center back fall is shorter than the shoulder full.

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So here's the tapered piece. I have placed it so the shoulder lines match, and I need to draw the outer edge of the collar. That gives me both a curve that looks good and a 90 degree angle for a couple of centimeters, or three quarters of an inch at the center back. Now I get a very funny shape here, and it looks like for me, for my bodice, this is far too short at the center back.

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If I increase the center back length a little, I can get a better shape. When I check that original measurement on my coat, I found that it wouldn't work at all. So if you're making the center back fall shorter than the shoulder fall you need to keep in mind that you'll need to test how much shorter you can get away with.

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This blue shape is the shortest. I can get the center back, while keeping the center back at 90 degrees and getting a curve I think looks reasonable. So back to my collar pieces. Here is the piece that I drafted and I will make that the under collar. For the top collar, I'll create a full piece. So you'd have to trace, flip it and trace it again to get the full collar piece.

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I will also add 3 to 5mm. That is, one eighth to three 16th of an inch to the outer edge of the collar, tapering to zero at the lapel notch point. This is to help hide the collar seam line. With my full collar piece, I'll place the grainline on the center back. With the under collar, I will place the grainline on the bias.

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So to draw that bias grain line on a 45 degree angle, I'll draw a rectangle first on the center back line, then draw a line from the bottom left of that rectangle to the top right corner as shown. And here I've added seam allowance to those two pattern pieces.

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So now onto the facing. First I'll measure on the shoulder line and at the waistline for five centimeters or two and 3/16 of an inch. That's the width of the facing at those points. I will trace the front of the bodice piece from the shoulder point, around the lapel and to the waist. Then I need to draw the inner line to join the shoulder and the waist points originally marked.

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So here is the facing I have so far. I've shaded the facing in yellow, but I do want to make a slight adjustment. As I did with the collar, I want to add 3 to 5mm around the lapel, tapering to nothing at the notch point and at the break point, but this is added to the facing, not the bodice piece. As the lapel turns over,

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it is the facing that is visible from the front - that's visible to the world, so that extra bit needs to be added to the facing. Again, this is to hide the seam line. The seam line should be pulled underneath a little and not be visible from the front. Finally, with all the pattern pieces, I will check that there is a grainline marked, the bodice pieces are named,

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cutting instructions are added, and check that there is seam allowance on all pieces. These are the four final pattern pieces drafted in this tutorial for the Tailor collar. And here are the four final pattern pieces, slightly different, used in my coat. So that's the end of this tutorial. Thanks for watching. And it's chow for me.

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