Sew Grateful Tutorial: How to Tame a Neckline Facing

I have a number of tutorials saved up in photos, half-written posts, or simply stored somewhere in my head, which I have not yet had the time to share with you. Enter: Sew Grateful Week a.k.a. a wonderful opportunity to finally get a tutorial ready to share with you.

Today's tutorial addresses the annoying problem of floppy, untameable facings. A lot of home sewing patterns have neckline facings instead of bindings, and often those facings are not held down by a lining and tend to flop up. I can think of countless items in my wardrobe: the Sencha blouse, the Edith blouse, the Ceylon dress, and well, yes, the Hawthorn blouse (come to think of it... a lot of these patterns are Colette patterns).

So, in making my recent Hawthorn blouse I was really annoyed by the back facing popping up all the time, despite having understitched and attached the facing at the shoulder. The facing is very weightless and narrow and, in my opinion, simply too small for the weight of the collar.

I didn't feel like hand tacking the facing down, so I decided to decoratively, yet functionally, machine stitch it down at the back.

It was Christmas time, so I felt all celebratory and decided to draw a star on my back facing, while keeping it in place with a pin.

I drew the star with a Pilot Frixion ball pen. I don't often endorse mass-produced products on this blog, but these pens are simply genius.

The ink vanishes with heat. Even just hovering the iron above the ink does the trick: poof, and everything is gone. I use those pens all the time, especially for marking buttonholes accurately. But, of course, always exercise caution! They might not vanish on all fabrics.

Ok, back to the topic at hand. So I drew my star, then pinned the facing down into position and sewed along the outline.

Then, I removed the ink with the heat of the iron and, tada!, the facing can no longer flop up and down, because it is now secured to the back of the shirt.

Sure, you can see the star from both sides, but it looks like a label or decoration from the right side, if you can see it at all peeking out from under the collar.

From the right side. Can you see the star just under the turned up collar?

Of, course you can make that symbol whatever you like. How about wavy lines, or a triangle, or a heart, or even your initials. Endless possibilities and all in all a quick and painless fix for annoying facings. I think I might go back over some of my old makes and tame all those facings.

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial. Have a great week and may your facings always stay put.