Peter pan collars, how I love thee. For ages I tried to find a 1930s blouse in this style, but this is what found me. Certainly not mad about it, it’s hands down one of the most comfortable blouses I now own. & the details I was able to include are true delights.
I don’t know which came first, the buttons or the fabric choice, but either way – over the moon (pun, intended) with how it all came together. The fabric is my own design – featuring Edwardian celestial jewelry – based off a few pieces in my own collection. You can read more about that here (you can even watch a video of me actually drawing the fabric design in the last slide). The design is named Le Rêve, here it’s in the “Arabian Nights” colorway – a moody deep maroon / plum – in Spoonflower‘s organic cotton sateen. I loved creating this pattern so much I did twelve colorways / versions for it, all of which you can see here.
The buttons – legendary. I don’t know how I got so lucky with these. They’re the most unreal vintage (possibly from the 30s), mirror-backed, glass star buttons. The faceting & foil makes it so they throw off light like crazy and it’s pure magic to see in person.
I’m in a phase where I’m either learning something new with each make (because I’m still new to sewing) or choosing something new. For this I chose bound buttonholes – mostly to support the shanks and weight of the buttons – but I also decided to go all out with the finishing touches of this one as I felt like the materials truly deserved it. Took me a bit to wrap my head around these buttonholes, but Wearing History‘s really wonderful video on them saw me though figuring it out.
Another place I decided to highly finish this blouse was in the seam allowances. I found a shop that offers a glorious stash of 1930s / 40s woven rayon ribbon (often used as or called hem tape) and chose some to bind each allowance (while normally bias binding is used for this, the nature of the woven tape has the edges locked in so I found it suitable to the task & it kept things lightweight. It also enabled me to finish the seams before constructing this as it would’ve been much more of a pain to sew these onto the finished allowances).
I did have one major face palm with this make and – uhg. This is the thing about sewing that can trip you up – the myriad of details. I’m always good about washing each fabric & ribbon before sewing with it – but totally missed on catching that need with my interfacing. (The agony. I’ve since completely given up iron on interfacing and stick with using fabric as interfacing.) So in the collar, I used an iron on fusible on the underside that wasn’t pre-shrunk. Which means if it gets wet it will shrink off the fabric and cause (what I’ve read is) irreversible bubbling. Which means I’m never letting the underside of this collar ever touch water. Wash day for this one will be a special joy (additionally considering those buttons will need to be popped off every time). Maybe one day I’ll just take it apart and address that. Hard lessons learned.
There were a few other difficulties (read: learning curves) with this blouse. The pattern notes were really sparse, and the one area I wasn’t able to fully sort out was the collar attachment point at the seam. The instructions don’t make sense in how to get it to turn out smoothly from the seam (I must’ve read it a half a million times, but the issue is most likely my newness to this). I was able to work it out so it’s passable but I still need to dismantle this issue for the next blouse. This pattern is also what put me off on cutting notches. I followed the pattern pieces and the notches cut way too deep and into the seam line (face, meet palm), so now I simply mark my notches with a washable pencil.
The blouse went together smoothly otherwise. All darts, pleats, and pattern pieces lined up seamlessly (apart from that collar). I love the finishes around the neck and inside the arm holes, I used a bit of a stiffer cotton left over in my stash and it gives a great hold & structure to the look. The fit is true (roomy, but wonderfully so) and is surprisingly long enough for my frame (I always anticipate needing to add length because, tall).
I consider this blouse a little work of art – my own designed fabric, very special vintage buttons, details tended to – and it brings me a lot of joy as it’s also a mood I had in my head that I was able to make into a wearable garment. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it! If you come across this pattern, highly recommend creating it! It’s so comfy.
xx, Lauren
Some fine print: All images (save the pattern photo, shared with written permission) & text here are held under my copyright and are not to be used, sampled, or otherwise shared for any reasons – commercial, personal, or otherwise – without my express written consent. Thank you. The pattern shown here is an original pattern and part of my personal collection, I don’t offer copies at this time and can’t point you in a direction for other originals or reproductions.
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