Last year or so I developed a shirt pattern from Simone by rotating out the front dart and creating a camp collar option for when the fancy strikes me (or I don’t have enough fabric to do a stand collar…). I love the shirts I’ve made more and more every day, and look forward to sewing more with this pattern.
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Those are all great, but I adore the use of the flower pattern on your test shirt. I’ll have to figure out how to make a collar like that. ,) Did you use interfacing?
@krtzl Thank you! Yes, I used interfacing in all of the collars featured in this post. For the test shirt, I might’ve used fusible interfacing from Joanns? For the rest of them, I used linen bias canvas I bought from Bias Bespoke. They say not to wash it but I wash my shirts with every wear and it’s still holding up great.
For the test shirt collar (and the other floral shirt) : that’s a Camp Collar. Camp Collars are actually really easy: you just need a fabric rectangle the length of your undercollar and whatever width you want (that test shirt is 3.25 inches wide). I drafted mine by hand but you can generate it with Simon or Simone on FreeSewing: you just have to fiddle around with the upper collar settings for a bit (to make the rectangle you desire).
Excellent shirts and love the camp collar! I’m struggling dialing in the fit of a Camp collar shirt pattern and wondering if and how Simon can be converted to one?
I read your comment that on enlarging one of the collar pieces but not sure how that would be sewn. Can you post pics of the inside collar/shoulder area, or maybe explain how?
I love talking about how I created a camp collar pattern! First, I made a Simone pattern with the button placket attached and made the fit choices I wanted (i.e I rotated out the dart manually. Simon doesn’t have the fit I want bc it doesn’t have the full bust adjustment; I’m sure you can use whatever pattern front piece fits the way you want). Then, I had to do two things: make the facing piece and make the collar.
For the facing piece, I first measured my seam allowance (“SA” written on the pattern; I do 5/8") to make the new edge of the front piece; I folded the pattern to make that new edge instead of making a new pattern (so I can use one pattern for stand collar or camp collar. (With Simone/Simon, to make the button and buttonhole lines, you fold over the front edge twice or more depending on how complex it is. With a camp collar, a facing takes the place of that folding-over.) Then, on a new piece of paper, I traced the new front edge, up along the collar, and three inches into the shoulder seam (I traced along the seam allowance bc I’m just an amateur sewist who wants to save some time. I’m sure the more correct way is to remove seam allowance, trace, then add seam allowance back in). I made the facing is three inches or so wide; I didn’t put seam allowance on the inside edge bc I can just serge over that if needed.
For the collar…I don’t actually remember how I did that, haha. I do remember playing with Simone’s settings online to try and get a rectangular collar but I don’t think what I generated online ended up in my pattern. I have some pictures below of Simone’s collar stand vs my camp collar. I wanted a notched collar kind of look so my camp collar piece doesn’t go all the way to the edge of the neckline. The possibilities are literally endless (just the other day I found a book at the library that was just how to draft a dizzying variety of collars). Looking at my collar piece, it looks like I made it the length I wanted, decided how wide I wanted the collar, then made the center wider than the edges because that’s what my commercially-bought camp collar shirts have.
