A Dress for Meg - 3- Drafting a Collar Pattern Piece

Here is the progress so far on Meg's dress - the two front bodice pieces have been joined to the back bodice with felled seams, and I need to draft a pattern piece so I can make a collar.   The first step is to fold back the two front edges in the position they will be in when I make the buttonholes and attach the buttons.  Then the bodice is laid flat on a piece of paper so I can draw around the neck edge and get an accurate outline.

The two front edges are going to overlap by an inch, and I need to allow a quarter of an inch seam allowance for when I sew the top and bottom collar pieces together.  By marking three quarters of an inch from the folded edge I can be sure that I can position the collar an inch from the folded edge.  

The drawing of the outline starts at the three quarters of an inch mark, and at the other end will finish the same distance from the opposite folded edge.

Once the outline of the neck is drawn on the paper, it is traced onto the paper that will be used for the pattern piece.  I have used ordinary greaseproof paper.

At each end of the neckline I have drawn a short line at a right angle.

The next step is to draw the outer edge of the pattern piece by plotting dots two and a half inches from the neckline and joining them with a gentle curve.

To round off the corners of the collar I used the lens cap from my camera.

To make sure that the pattern piece is symmetrical, I have folded it in half before cutting it out.

Because I need to cut out two pieces for the collar, I cut the pattern piece in half and then cut out the two collar pieces by laying the centre back line of the collar on the fold of the fabric.  Here are the two pieces cut out from the fabric, one already removed from the pattern piece and opened out, and the other still pinned to the pattern piece.

Linking up today with Kelly's blog My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.