A Little Sewing Project - Peter Pan Collars

The other day whilst I was looking online at items in La Redoute's flash sale, I was admiring tops with Peter Pan collars.  I just think that they are so cute.  Not wanting to spend any money buying new clothes, I decided to try to make a Peter Pan collar myself that could be worn with a number of outfits, from this vintage pattern that I've had for a while.

I have made collars of this type before a couple of years ago, whilst studying for a City and Guilds in Fashion, but they were used in a display and I forgot to collect them, so I never got them back.  I do have one, which I made to go with a skirt I made in the same fabric.  Here's a picture.  I even made the cuffs to match, but I've never worn them.

 

 

Anyway, I went up to the sewing room and pulled out some fabric from my scrap drawer that I thought would be suitable and cut the collar pieces out.  I didn't make it exactly like the pattern or the one's I'd made previously,  instead adapting the pattern slightly to make a more simple version.  It fastened with a hook and eye at the front, which can be a little fiddly to fasten, but I could alter this if I did have difficulty with it.  Here's was the result. 

Anyway, I then remembered why I haven't worn the first collar very much, namely because the hook detaches itself from the eye and it falls off, so I thought I'd better come up with a better solution.  I decided to put a small button on and make a fabric loop which I sewed into one side.  This was a much more secure method.  Here's the result of the changes I made. 

It's not actually been ironed yet, is by no means perfect (I forgot to add the fusible interlining making it a little flimsy) and was done in a bit of a hurry on a whim, but I think it's quite sweet and will be nice to wear with a plain t-shirt to give it a bit of extra interest.  I wear a lot of navy in the summer, so hopefully it might get some wear.  Now I just need to alter the original one in a similar way and I might wear that one more often too.

As a consequence of the simplicity of making this item, I'm thinking of making a few in different fabrics and I might even make one from some leather scraps I have, but I'm not sure if I'm quite brave enough for that.  The other good thing about this, is that it uses very little fabric and you could make one with probably less than a quarter of a meter which makes it very inexpensive and a great way to use up various scraps of leftover fabric and create lots of different looks at the same time.