Fit 2 Stitch

Peggy Sagers: "Collars and linings pull, and waistbands hurt," says everyone.

But why do these problems happen?

I say, yes, there are reasons and, even better, there are solutions.

Bias collars, lining options, and elastic waistbands, really?

Yes, really.

Today we're diving into these three common trouble spots, showing you how to make collars stand tall, linings glide with ease, and waistbands feel as good as they look.

Join me for some smart, simple, and easy sewing right here on "Fit 2 Stitch."

male announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors, Reliable Corporation, Bennos Buttons, Plano Sewing Center, Elliott Berman Textiles, and WAWAK Sewing Supplies.

Peggy: I am excited today to talk to you about some problem areas that we just have experienced over and over, and I truly believe it's just a little bit of lack of education and understanding.

And I look back on our sewing histories, and there's nowhere we would pick up this information, so that's why I'm really excited to share this information with you today.

We're gonna talk about collars, we're gonna talk about linings, we're gonna talk about waistbands.

Those are probably the most common questions that we get, and I think they're just-- like I said, the solutions are so easy.

So, first off, the main thing that we struggle with when we talk about collars is what we call a full-roll collar.

And that, if we look at the center back, it just simply-- we don't have to actually see the center back, but what we know is it comes up and covers itself.

The collar itself at center back comes up and covers itself.

So that's called a full-roll collar.

The reason it's a full-roll collar is because it has a full roll.

This is not rocket science.

This is just really easy.

And let me tell you how that collar is developed, and then you'll start to understand the variables that go with it.

I have a front and a back, and most of the time, they're added on what we call a jewel neck.

A jewel neck is just one that's right next to the base of our neck, and so the measurements are whatever the circumference of our neck is, and that does cause some problems in some cases.

We're gonna explore those.

But if I just take a French curve and if I count how many inches are in the front, typically 5, 3 1/2 in the back.

That's pretty standard.

Believe it or not, our necks are pretty standard.

So when I take that 5 and I take that 3 1/2 and I add them together, I end up with the whole neck edge.

Now, remember that was half, so I can divide that by half.

And if I measure that, that is my 8 1/2 inches.

And be sure, if you're measuring with seam allowance, to include them or, if you're measuring without, to include them.

Just keep in mind the seam allowances and the difference those seam allowances create.

Now, you don't have to do any of this.

What you can do is just take a pattern that has a jewel neckline with a full-roll collar and start there because that's exactly where I'm gonna start.

I have those two.

I understand the relationship somewhat between the two of them.

I'm gonna go and look at collars now and start to notice the difference.

And this is the questions I get all the time-- is "I want this collar on this blouse and--" et cetera, et cetera.

So let me teach you something about collars.

Collars never have any accountability for doing wrong.

They're never at fault.

Collars never do anything wrong, and the reason why they don't is because collars always lay flat.

So a flat piece of fabric cannot be responsible for problems that we're having within our body, but the collar is where the problem manifests itself.

So that's why we wanna talk collars today.

Let's just say that I wanted this style.

Because collars always lay flat, I can actually--let me just move these out of the way so that we clearly see what I'm doing.

If I were to take this and lay this against my pattern, I can see, well, gosh, it's almost the exact same length.

But as I start into the style portion, I can see that it's a little more pointed.

It's a little-- you can see those variations in styling.

But I could lay it down and literally trace what it is onto my base because what we know is this is the neck edge... and this is for fitting... and all of this is styling... So it doesn't matter what I do.

If I notice this collar in particular-- notice now, it doesn't have the band.

It's just all one piece.

So if I lay it down-- and, again, I can center it.

Actually, it's, like, the same length.

So you can see that that just goes up.

So let's do something fun here.

We're gonna take our base collar, and I--let's say we want the pink.

We're gonna lay our base collar on this new pattern piece, and we're going to trace just the edge that has to fit my pattern because the rest of it is style, okay?

So I'm gonna trace it on, and remember the only thing that has to be right is my length.

Now, in this particular case, I included seam allowance, and this collar that I'm dealing with is sewn, so it wouldn't have seam allowance.

So I'm gonna leave a little bit extra there, and I'm gonna leave a little bit extra on this end, and you can see it's almost identical.

It's just almost the exact same.

So all I have to do is recognize that the shape of this collar goes straight up-- I'm gonna make sure I add seam allowance-- and just comes straight over, and that's the difference.

That's all the difference there is so that when I compare these two collars, I get completely this look... versus this look... So let's do it again.

This is a test just to make sure you understand what I'm saying.

Remember, collars lay flat.

You can't go wrong with collars.

I can go--there's times I've been in the store and I'll literally lay them down and trace their shape because-- now, if I lay this exact same collar-- you gotta open them up to where they're big enough, and you can--if you'll notice, it's not really the neck edge that actually changes.

You can see all these different collars with all these different looks.

Actually, the neck edge is exactly the same, remembering that I have seam allowance here and I have to add it here.

But now look at this crazy shaping.

It goes here... It comes way up here... You know, I'm adding this kind of seam allowance as I go.

But you start to see how simple it is to create different looks.

As long as I have the actual collar, I already know the neck relationship to the band itself.

And so that's all I really need, and I'm off to the races as far as taking that blouse that I had fell in love with that's ridiculous amounts of money and making it to where it can go on to a collar pattern that I already have.

So the next one I wanna show you is-- it gets a little more complicated when we go to jacket patterns, and that's simply because jacket patterns typically are broken into two pieces.

Now, blouse collars are also.

And on this one, what you've noticed is I went ahead and I did an undercollar and an uppercollar.

It should--it's really called a band.

The stand--band, stand, whichever you wanna call it, and that can be done by simply drawing and cutting the collar where it indents.

Now, keep in mind, it can be all in one, or when you cut it apart, you can add seam allowance and sew it back together.

So that does not affect style.

That does not affect fit.

I just think there are some people out there who, when they look at a collar, they just, you know, like the rigidity of having a stand that's underneath the collar.

They're both cut straight of grain.

There's no change in any of that.

So if your pattern is dealing with one piece to start with and that's where the relationship exists between the base of the neck, start with that.

If you have two pieces, take the seam allowance away, put them together, and you'll still have that same exact relationship to build off of.

So that's gonna help you a lot with blouse collars.

It's important to recommend and to notice that they have to have this shaping-- the longer in the front and the shorter in the back.

But I'm gonna show you a couple of problems here in a minute that are-- it's very interesting, as we noticed that.

All right, so let's move to jackets for a little bit.

Jackets--I've got these three jackets on the table.

They're all ridiculously expensive, and what all of them have is what-- and Armani was the first one to really start this back in-- many years ago.

He started doing a bias undercollar, a bias undercollar-- but not the whole thing, just a strip.

So, again, I've taken my collar, and I did the same thing I did with a blouse.

I took my neck edge.

I measured it to find out how many inches it's supposed to be, and then I drew a straight line and-- because on a full-roll collar, the neck edge is typically straight.

In fact, it's the neck edge that rolls around-- the collar that rolls around the neck edge is why it rolls.

It's the straight edge versus the round edge that creates the collar to roll in the first place.

All right, so we're gonna trust our pattern.

We're gonna trust what we start with, or we can create our own.

We can do one of those two things.

But what we notice on a jacket is somewhere-- and it's in front of the shoulder seam-- this breaks off.

If I open this up for you, it breaks off to where it has this little sub-piece underneath here.

And I've drawn it on here so you can see it, but you can actually measure the collar and say, "Oh, it starts right about there."

Where it starts and where it stops just doesn't make that much difference, but just notice it goes all along the way, and all of these do the exact same thing.

You can see how there's just a little curve in there.

Now, what we don't see a lot of times-- and I went ahead and marked that on this one-- is that is cut into a separate piece.

In this case, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a little notch here just so we can realign it, and I want you to remember that I've got a straight of grain.

Typically on a collar, I've got a straight of grain.

So I'm gonna create that straight of grain.

All right, now when I cut it apart, the last thing I want is straight of grain.

In an earlier show, we talked about bias, and we talked about using bias for our advantage.

This is a case where we're gonna use bias for our example because now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take that little piece and I'm gonna put it on a true bias.

And I'll use my ruler to help me draw that because that's why I put that straight line there-- is now we're gonna actually not do straight of grain; we're gonna do bias.

It's going to be an undercollar.

And what it will do is it will just help pull that collar under and around, and it's incredible.

However, having said all of this, there are two base reasons that cause you so many problems with collars, and I want to point those out to you right now.

The first is that when we go to make a muslin-- and if you have collar issues-- and when I say "collar issues," what I mean is typically it'll pull back.

So if you put a collar on and it pulls back-- or even a blouse-- it doesn't have to have a collar.

Sometimes it will pull back without the collar.

But the collar is the best way to detect what's wrong.

So when I look at this collar, what I see is-- notice how that collar is kind of pointing up to the sky instead of following the shape of this dress form.

We have this rounded back, and we really want this dress form to curve around and to come up and follow it, but you notice instead it points right up.

And I said earlier there was never-- the collar was never at fault.

It was never the collar's fault.

So what we're gonna see here is this is actually what we call a rounded back.

And if I cut all the way through here to the edge of the armhole-- and it doesn't make a difference if it's a princess seam or not a princess seam-- it will allow me to put a dart in this back and to pull this collar up where it belongs, and now you see it starts to actually pull into your body, like it should.

Now, this is not easy to do by yourself.

You'll have to put it on.

You'll have to say, "Gee, I think--" it's typically about an inch or maybe even less-- like, 3/4 of an inch.

I can measure the widest part, and I can taper to nothing, and it's typically about 3 inches down.

Now, those are all very typical.

So I can go back to my pattern.

I can go into--because I know it's in the back, I can measure about 3 inches down, and I can make this cut right in here, and basically all it means is that the back of my bodice is not-- doesn't have enough depth.

It's not length.

It's not circumference.

It's just depth.

And so I'm gonna open that up and create a little shift.

I can't do this in the fabric after it's already been cut, so it's really important that I do it in the beginning.

It'll cause a little bit of a pivot in my pattern, but I'm just gonna put this back on the fold and the bottom back on the fold, and I'm gonna cut off just that little section right in there because I don't need it.

It's not gonna make a difference.

It's--you know, when I'm opening up, I'm actually adding a little bit of circumference.

That will solve it.

There's one other problem that really makes a difference, and it's, again, really shocking.

I'm gonna show you two blouses.

I don't even want you to look at tags.

I don't want you to look at them that closely.

But one is $27, and one is $700.

Now, I'm not saying you need the one that's twen-- that's $700.

I'm not saying that at all, but you do need to notice the differences.

So we're gonna look to the back.

When you put this collar on, and when I look at the back and when I-- remember I said the base-- everyone needs about 3 1/2 inches, half.

So that's 7 inches across the back of that neck.

And then when I actually measure this blouse-- now remember, this blouse only costs, you know, $27.

It's not even 6 inches.

So understand that when a blouse doesn't even come to the back of your shoulders, there's no possible way it can't pull back.

So, again, it's not the collar's fault, but the neckline is so small that it's causing the garment to pull back, whereas when I go to this one, boy, do I get those inches that I need.

This one comes up right at 7 inches.

That's gonna allow that collar to be relaxed on the body, and it's gonna make a huge difference.

So the two things that are really gonna cause you problems with your collars is simply that I have a rounded back and the collar is what's telling me I have a rounded back or that the actual neckline itself is so small that, when I put the collar on it, it's the collar that causes the problem, and it pulls back.

All right, perfect.

That will solve a lot of your collar issues.

And I think because we haven't known over the years that collars-- even the relationship between a collar and a neckline-- we haven't known where to go and how to fix it.

All right, let's talk linings because linings are really something that-- I think people have a tendency that "they're just so hard."

"They're just so difficult to do."

But I'm gonna throw out some suggestions to you, and I hope that will really help you.

We're gonna take a look at these first ones.

And, really, I'm only kind of throwing out names because I know that you'll recognize them as more expensive, and you automatically think "With expense, it should come lining."

The first one is a very high-end knit, no lining at all, literally no lining at all.

A little disappointing, but we're gonna say no lining at all.

The next one, again, very high-end, and what we see is a half lining, and half linings are-- in my opinion, I would never recommend you do a half lining, and the reason I would never recommend that is because they're the most amount of work.

I still have to do my lining, and yet look at all the finishing that has to take place on all of these seams.

So half linings are the very most work possible, and it's interesting because a lot of times when we say, "Well, I'm just gonna half-line it," it sounds like that would be easier.

It's just not.

This is a high-end.

The jacket itself, $4,000.

And what have they done?

They've half-lined it.

It's only half-lined because you've gotta go in and finish all of these parts, and that creates a lot of time.

So I'm gonna suggest you go and you line the whole thing-- either no lining, or line the whole thing.

That's, I think, our two options.

And when you do a lining, you're gonna reach into-- it's typically the left sleeve.

And when you pull out the left sleeve-- and I know this is black.

It might be a little hard to see.

But we're gonna see a little section of this that is top-stitched, and the sleeve itself is top-stitched together.

There you have it.

You can see the difference in how this was stitched.

There--that little channel there was put right sides together and just closed up.

This is where the whole jacket is closed up.

So if I open that, I can access the whole entire jacket.

I'm gonna suggest, when you do linings, just in the beginning, let's not close up the bottom.

We're gonna leave the bottom open, and that way, I think, you're gonna find it so much easier to line.

So I'm gonna make my jacket.

And there's a formula for lining, and the formula is the pattern minus the facings minus the hems equal the linings.

So I've got two pieces here, and one I've made the jacket, and I've put on the facing.

I did that because there was piping here, and then I made my lining.

So people say, "Oh, you gotta make the jacket twice."

No, it's not that hard.

It's not that hard.

Don't do that.

It's simple.

And plus that, it will slip and it will slip beautifully.

But then I'm gonna put wrong sides together, and then I'm gonna sew it right sides together.

But I'm just gonna connect all the way around the lining, just simple to do.

This is gonna end up going down the sleeves, and this is just a great little trick because what's gonna happen is-- remember that my lining is my facings minus my hems plus the seam allowance.

So that means my lining for my sleeve is shorter than my li-- than my sleeve for the jacket.

And I'm gonna pin those together so that they don't twist, and then I'm gonna reach in between the jacket and the lining, and I'm gonna pull 'em to the wrong side.

And you can pin this, and it's really, really easy to do.

And you'll kind of-- people always say, "Well, it's like two elephants' trunks kissing," and I'll say, "Okay, that's-- if that's how you remember, I think I'm good with that."

But what you're gonna do then is pull this out and put the right sides together and stitch around in a circle 'cause you can easily access that whole entire thing.

And then when I pull it out, what you're going to see is that hem is gonna be-- the sleeve is beautifully hemmed, but it's all done by machine.

It's all done by simply sticking that sleeve down.

It's shorter and so it pulls up the hem of the jacket.

You do have to predetermine the length that you want the sleeves to be, but if you're not sure, it's easy enough to just cut 'em a little longer, put it on, and then if you decide they need to be shorter, you can always just go in and take a little bit out of the lining and pull it up.

So it's really simple to do that.

And I'm gonna tell you that I would recommend-- and you can see I did it here-- I actually hemmed this lining, and I'm gonna leave it loose.

I hemmed the jacket and I hemmed the lining, because if that lining isn't exactly right and it might pull somewhere, I don't wanna know.

It's okay.

It will last.

It will be just fine in the process.

Okay, the last thing I wanna talk about is waistbands because I just get so many questions about waistband, and so much information is current and fresh, and I think you'll love it in your waistband.

So let's first take a look at them.

And I'm gonna to tell you in general: When I'm dealing with an elastic waistband-- and I'm not sure what it is, but we are loving elastic waistbands.

We just seem, as a generation, to have gone into-- maybe it's our knit fabrics that have spoiled us tremendously, or maybe it's just this whole relaxed attitude that we have now, but we love elastic waistbands, but a lot of times we don't want them to show.

But we're--the first type of elastic waistband I'm gonna start with is a separate band.

The old elastic waistband-- what we used to do is just cut the pant higher, we'd fold over, and thread it through with elastic.

And when you do that, you don't get as much control as when you actually create a separate piece, put the elastic in it, and then sew it to the top of the pant.

So that's suggestion number one.

Number two, we're gonna look at some pants, and this is--you know, elastic has come a long way.

And what we're doing with elastic is we're actually finishing the top of the pant with elastic.

There's no waistband.

There's no fabric.

There's just elastic at the top, and it is simply sewn right sides together.

I'm gonna show you how this is done.

I've got two separate examples that I wanna show you, and you can do this a couple of different ways, and it's kind of up to you.

So here's the top of my little pant, and I can put the elastic with the right sides together, and then I can pull it up and turn it to the inside.

And when I do that, you actually don't see any elastic at all.

You just see the top of the pant.

And you don't wanna stitch that down, you don't want to top-stitch, you don't want to do anything, 'cause that kind of defeats the purpose.

You can tack it on the inside.

And if you'll notice these bands, every once in a while here, they're tacked in place and that holds 'em.

So--and if you notice here, there's a little bit of a waistband there, plus the elastic.

So I think the most important thing to do is to be aware that waistbands have changed over the years.

If we go back to the-- I'm gonna call it traditional waistband-- it is folded in half.

The seam allowance, if you notice, is turned up.

The pant--and I've done this little section-- is slipped up into that section, and it's edge-stitched in place so that when you take away the stitching, the waistband pops off.

Now, this is two layers.

Even if I'm doing it this way, I don't need any interfacing.

There's no interfacing that needs to go into this band.

Interfacing will do nothing.

There's a great funny story about that.

I'll spare you the story, but I don't need interfacing waistbands.

I don't need anything to make them thicker.

In fact, the thinner I keep them, the better off I will be because, as women, we have curves, and the wide waistbands just don't fit those curves.

So keep that off.

I wanna show you this pant because this pant is probably the most modern version of all.

It's got the wide elastic inside.

It is a little bit of a stretch, but it's got an invisible zipper that goes with it.

And that combination creates a very beautiful flat waistband but still has a lot of ease in it.

So with an invisible zipper, what you wanna do is put in one side, put in the other side, sew up from the bottom-- we've shown this many times-- so that you create that nice invisible zipper.

Even if it's a stretch pant, it's great to have an invisible zipper.

Then I can come in with my waistband, I can turn it down, and you can let a little bit show or do it the first way I showed you and have nothing show.

Either way, those waistbands with that elastic-- don't be afraid to let this elastic show.

Look at this.

It's showing all the way around the pant.

But we can determine the style we want, you know, how much we want it to show, and it's really a lot of fun.

Waistbands have come such a long way.

Next time on "Fit 2 Stitch," we're diving into DIY tennis shoes.

And trust me, you will not want to miss this.

The cost of tennis shoes has soared, but what if you could make your own?

It's gonna be creative, empowering-- and, above all, fun.

announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors, Reliable Corporation, Bennos Buttons, Plano Sewing Center, Elliott Berman Textiles, and WAWAK Sewing Supplies.

announcer: To order a four-DVD set of "Fit 2 Stitch Series 14," please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.