Neckline Hack – Envelope Style [Tutorial] + Blog Tour Day 6

I am mixing it up today and hitting you with the Thread Faction SS2016 Collection Blog Tour line up right off the bat! Today’s amazing bloggers are:

Sew Very and Call Ajaire

Head over and check out their posts and get in on all the prize draw action. We are giving away over $200 in fabric store credit in the main draw and patterns from the collection on the individual blog posts.

I am also adding to the tour each day with my own hacks and tutorials involving the SS2016 collection, and today I have one which is both:

If you have had a look at the SS2016 collection, you might recognize the #110 romper. For my hack though, I have omitted the flutter sleeves and back opening and added an envelope style neckline.

The envelope neckline, very popular with baby garment manufacturers the world over, is used mostly so that you can easily get little baby t-shirts over big baby heads. However it is super useful here as it allows you to get the romper on and off without having to add any fiddly closures. It’s just bind and go!

Drafting the neckline is pretty easy too. Here’s how:

Take your front and back bodice pieces and mark the seam allowance on the shoulder seam.
With some additional paper behind, secure the back bodice down and line up the front bodice piece along the shoulder seam.
Trace around the armhole of the front bodice piece, and remove.
Mark a point on your traced line half way between the shoulder seam and the bottom of the armhole. Connect this point with a curve (as shown) to the neckline. This is your new pattern piece.
Repeat the process with the front bodice piece and you have your new pattern pieces (shown below, in miniature 🙂 )

Construction:

I didn’t take any pics of the construction, but this is how you do it:

Measure the new front and back necklines of your pattern pieces and then cut a piece of binding 90% of the measured length and 1 inch wide.
Bind both the front and back necklines as the pattern suggests or by your preferred binding method.
Overlap the shoulders so that the armhole is the same length as it would have originally been – make sure that the back pattern piece is on top.
Baste the front and back pieces together along the armhole opening.
Measure your armhole openings and cut a piece of binding 90% of the measured length and 1 inch wide.
Bind both the armholes as the pattern suggests or by your preferred binding method.
With right sides facing, sew the side seams of the top.
Construct the rest of the romper as per the pattern instructions.

I sewed some buttons to the top layer of the envelope opening, these are purely decorative.

I know some of this is a bit vague, please feel free to ask questions in the comments, I am happy to help out 🙂