Tutorial: Peter Pan Collar Sweater

I love sweaters very much.  Unfortunately, I own a few that I loved when I tried them on in the store, but when it came the day to day wear them, I was less than thrilled with the way they looked. The last few months, I have been trying to refashion a few of them to extend their life in my wardrobe.  This sweater was purchased for a Mother's Day photo-shoot with my two lovely sisters.  It was very cute for the photo-shoot, but once I got it home, I found it to be a little difficult to wear because of its boxy shape and overall plainness.  I finally decided to refashion it, playing up on the boxiness of the sweater.  Here goes a peter-pan collar tutorial! 

1.  Make a pattern:  This may sound daunting, but it only took me about ten minutes, and I am not much of a pattern maker.  Seriously.  Trace the neckline of your sweater onto a large piece of paper.  Find the exact middle of the back of the sweater and mark it with a little tally mark 

on your piece of paper.  Then make a right angle from your mark down the paper about 2 1/2 inches, or however wide you would like your collar to be.  (Remember that your collar is going to be laying over the sweater, so you want to draw your right angle going down towards the bottom of the sweater.)  Finish drawing your pattern so that you have a nice rounded edge where the collar meets the button-down front of your sweater.  I was very careful to make sure that the sweater fabric didn't stretch as I traced the pattern.  I only patterned half of the collar and then just cut it out on the fold so that my collar would be exactly symmetrical.  

2.  Cut out your paper pattern and put it on top of your collar fabric of choice (note:  I never put seam allowances on my patterns, but you might want to add the seam allowance so you don't forget it when you cut out the fabric)  Cut out 2 of the fabric (one for the outside, and one for the collar lining) leaving a 5/8" seam allowance around the edge.  Cut out 1 piece of lightweight interfacing.   

3.  Iron your interface onto on of the wrong sides of your collar. 

4.  Stitch around the collar leaving the edge that will be sewed to the neckline open.

 5.  Trim and grade the curved outside edge (meaning: trim the seam allowance that will be the facing the outside when you turn the collar right side out, to about 1/2 inch, or less if it looks too bulky with your fabric.  Then, take the the seam allowance layer that will be covered by the outer layer and trim it to 1/4 in.  In case this means nothing to you, see this blog's instructions).  This will help your collar look professional and clean. 

 6. Turn your collar right side out and press.  If you still have too much bulk around that corner, trim a little more of the seam allowance out.  Remember that the layer that your interfacing is attached to should be the layer that is facing out. 

7.  Serge or zig-zag the neckline edge. 
8.  Cross stitch the serged edge to the inside of the sweater neckline.  This hand stitching will allow you to keep the sweater from stretching out as you attach the collar. 

9. On the outside of the sweater, where the collar meets the neckline of the sweater, slip stitch tiny stitches to attach the collar more firmly to the sweater.  This line of stitching will go directly under where the collar folds over the neckline of the sweater. 

10.  Voila!  Wear your newly revived sweater! 

For questions or comments, please feel free to email me at landen.cloakroom@gmail.com.
Happy sewing!