Lady Grey: Pad Stitching and Steam Pressing the Under Collar

Now that the tailoring on the front of the jacket is complete the under collar is up next.  I am truly amazed at what pad stitching can do to a flat piece of fabric.  Gertie has a wonderful tutorial on her blog if you would like a more in depth description of how to go about this technique. 

Here I’ve completed the pad stitching on the collar prior to steam pressing.   You will note that I pieced my hair canvas on the under collar.  I was being frugal and didn’t want to waste so I pieced two pieces of the canvas and then cut my collar out.

 

 

I didn’t have a tailor’s ham so I improvised and rolled up my beach towel and pinned my collar around this make shift ham.  I also stuffed some rolled up washcloths under the collar to help create the shape I wanted.  As with the lapel, by setting the iron to the highest setting to produce the most amount of steam, you can steam shape into the pad stitched under collar by hovering the iron just above the piece and steam setting the shape into it.

Here you can see the results after the collar has been allowed to cool over night.

Next I will be adding a back stay and constructing more of the jacket.

Happy Sewing…