Hi readers!

This post features an item I made 2 years ago, and about which I wrote a couple of blog posts for the American Sewing Guild, where I was employed at the time. You can find the posts here and here. The original collar was featured in “Gifts You Can Make Yourself”, a book from the 1940s which my mother was gifted as a young married woman, before my siblings and I came along. I grew up with this book and it has always been on my parents’ bookshelf and now on mine, in all it’s shredded glory.

I remember my mother knitting cardigans and vests featured in the book for my father and grandfather.

I’m told that this cable knit baby shawl was made when my parents started their family.

Yep, my mom was a prolific knitter in her day. I guess that knitting gene morphed into the sewing gene in me.

Skip to 2012 and I decided to sew this lace collar from the book. The difference between the original (top right in the left photo) and my version is twofold; I used a wider lace which made the collar a little bigger in size.

Second, I skipped the folded binding at the neckline and stitched on two rows of a rayon binding inside the collar. You can also see the hook and eye I attached at the ends.

The way I’m wearing it here, the hook and eye is not used. In the “wearing of the collar”, it was handsewn to the v neckline of a black knit top, and this is the result. I wear this a lot!

Now a word about my photo.  Thanks to Brian J. Campbell who shot the portrait. Also, Brian is my awesome, brand new son-in-law. Go see his website.  Photography is his after-hours dream job.

Happy Sewing!

Samina