Love Your True Romance? Here Are All the Other Necklines You Can Put On It

Statement sleeves have well and truly proved they're more than just a passing trend. They've been going strong for years now, and honestly, we're not mad about it. There's just something about a fabulous sleeve that can make an otherwise simple top feel a little bit special.

And if you love the statement bishop sleeves of the True Romance Bishop Sleeve Top but fancy changing up its boat neckline, you've got options. Quite a few of them, actually.

From rounded necklines and V-necks to scoops and square necklines, you can give your True Romance a completely different look simply by borrowing a neckline from another Pattern Emporium pattern.

And the best bit? Some of them are now a direct swap. No pattern mashing or adjustments needed.

So let's start with those.

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THE EASY WAY: DIRECT NECKLINE SWAP

If you own either the Besties Tee or All Good Tee, changing the neckline on your True Romance is super easy. Their necklines can be used directly on the True Romance Banded Bishop Sleeve Top without making any other adjustments to the pattern.

BESTIES TEE

The Besties Tee gives you the biggest choice, with five different necklines:

• High Rounded Neck
• Mid Rounded Neck
• Low Rounded Neck
• V-Neck
• Square Neck (x2)

Simply choose your favourite and use the Besties neckline in place of the True Romance boat neck.

That's it.

No pattern mash required.

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ALL GOOD TEE

You can do exactly the same thing with the All Good Tee, which gives you four neckline options:

• High Rounded Neck
• Mid Rounded Neck
• Low Rounded Neck
• V-Neck

Again, these are a direct swap onto the True Romance Banded Bishop Sleeve Top, so there's nothing else you need to change.

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WANT EVEN MORE OPTIONS?

This is where we get into a little pattern mashing.

Unlike Besties and All Good, the following patterns aren't a direct swap. You'll need to make a small adjustment to the True Romance pattern first so the shoulders and neckline all play nicely together.

It's not difficult, and I'll show you exactly how to do it below.

You can use necklines from (click to go to the pattern):

• Keep It Simple T-shirt
• Hello Gorgeous Puff Sleeve Tee
• Refresh Ruched Tee
• Bound To Be Tee
• Allure Bell Sleeve Top
• Trapeze Trio

So have a look through the patterns you already own and see what you've got to play with.

And don't forget about the finish itself. If you'd like to give your True Romance that wider, ready-to-wear style neckline binding, Bound To Be gives you that option too.

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HOW TO MASH A DIFFERENT NECKLINE ONTO YOUR TRUE ROMANCE

If you're using one of the patterns above, there's just a little bit of prep to do before you can use its neckline.

YOU WILL NEED:

• True Romance Banded Bishop Sleeve Top: Front (#1) & Back (#2)
• True Romance Tee: Front (#8) & Back (#9)
• The Front, Back and corresponding neckband or binding pieces from the PE pattern whose neckline you'd like to use.

TIP: If you haven't printed your pieces yet, you only need to print from around the base of the armhole upwards for the True Romance Tee and the pattern you're borrowing your neckline from.

STEP 1: ADJUST THE FRONT

• Place the Front on Top of the True Romance Tee Front.
• Along the shoulder, mark where the True Romance neckline starts.

STEP 2:

• Next place the Front on top of the True Romance Banded Front
• Align the notch from above with the neckline/shoulder on the True Romance.
• Align centre fronts.

STEP 3: 

• Draw in neckline.     

STEP 4: FRONT

• Draw in new shoulder line from the new neckline to the True Romance shoulder/armhole corner.
• Your new front is complete.

   

STEP 5: ADJUST THE BACK

Repeat steps 1-4 above for the back pieces. 

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Once you've made that little adjustment, you've opened up a whole new collection of True Romance tops.

Keep the bishop sleeves you love and swap out the boat neck depending on what you feel like wearing. Go higher, lower, rounded, V-neck, square, scoop or even change up the neckline finish itself.

Same True Romance. Whole lot more to play with.

OR... SWAP THE SLEEVES INSTEAD!

There’s another way to do it. Rather than adding a different neckline to your True Romance, you can simply take those fabulous True Romance bishop sleeves and add them to any of the patterns we've mentioned above.

No adjustments needed. Just swap the sleeve pieces.

So if you already love the neckline and fit of Besties, All Good, Keep It Simple, Hello Gorgeous or any of the others, keep the top exactly as it is and give it a pair of True Romance bishop sleeves instead.

Same idea. Just coming at it from the other direction!

Happy sewing!

Kate x