Peter Pan Granville (Measure Fabric)

I have a documented love for Peter Pan collar blouses dating back basically to the verrry beginning of this blog. I think it may be a subconscious holdover from the uniform I wore as an elementary school student, which was a little plaid pinafore worn over a peter pan collar blouse. So cute! Before I knew how to sew, I lamented the fact that there are very few adult-sized peter pan collar shirts and fewer without puff sleeves–these two things seem to go in pairs and I hate hate hate puff sleeves! Now that I have a go-to shirt pattern, the Sewaholic Granville, it was an obvious next step to change the collar slightly to create the peter pan collar shirt pattern of my dreams! I just rounded off the collar points to make this change. It\’s a very simple alteration that just gives the shirt a slightly different feel. Since the rest of the shirt is still very traditional, it\’s not over girly even with the sweet collar.

I also rounded off the sleeve cuffs. The fact that it echoes the shirt collar nicely is a nice bonus, but the primary reason for this change was practical rather than aesthetic–it\’s a bit easier to sew and means if your button and buttonhole aren\’t perfectly aligned, it\’s not quite so obvious as the square cuff. All of the Ralph Lauren button down shirts have a slightly rounded cuff!

This shirt\’s collar and cuffs are the best I\’ve ever done, I think, and I\’m very proud of the plackets on this shirt–all of which comes down to the fabric! This shirting from Measure Fabric is very crisp, so it pressed amazingly and I think it will be very durable in the long run since it is so tightly woven. It reads as blue to me, but when selecting thread from the display I was surprised that it matched best with the pale purples, not the blues. Maybe it looks purple to you?

I have a little bit of this fabric left over so I\’m going to see if I can squeeze a sleeveless version out of it; I mentioned in my Fall/Winter sewing post that I wanted to make some layering pieces for under sweaters in the winter, and I think I might be able to use the rest of this to make one if I use something else for neckbands, sleeve binding, etc. Creative pattern cutting is always exciting!

How do you feel about Peter Pan collars? Yay or nay?

xoxo,