Crepe Stabilization

I spent a whole evening on stabilizing my seams on the Crepe Dress, following along with Gertie’s Sew-Along Post #8.

I used Kenneth King’s Stabilization method on the Crepe Sweetheart neckline, just as Gertie had suggested.  I’m pretty familiar with this method from all of my research from stabilizing the Macaron seams.

It’s pretty dark to see on my images, since I’ve shot them in the evening while using a black underlining fabric.  But I basted some black silk organza strips down the straight and curvy sections of my neckline.

What I’ve done a bit differently than Gertie, was deciding to use some stay tape on all of the armhole seams instead of using silk organza strips.  It was pretty crazy trying to pin the stay tape inside the armhole section as you can see…

I didn’t think the armholes and shoulder seams needed as much heavy-duty stabilization as the neckline seam, which is why I opted for the stay tape instead of the organza.

While the insides look nice to me, below is a picture of the front bodice neckline for you guys.  You can see my black line of stitching all around the seams.

I also decided to stabilize the back bodice pieces as well, using the stay tape stabilizer instead of organza once again.

I’m happy with how everything looks but I was really hoping to have progressed further on the Crepe by now; it’s been pretty slow going.

Luckily, while I was shopping at my local fabric store for some thread, I found the (nearly) perfect shade of mustard-yellow to use to make the contrast ties.  I gave up long ago looking for a shade to match, but it just popped out at me and I had to buy it.  I was actually looking around for a blue instead, but none of the blues I found looked quite right to me.  The only downside with the mustard fabric is that it’s a linen/rayon blend instead of a cotton but I figured anything goes for the waist ties…

I also decided that I’d use it to make my own piping so I plan on adding that the the neckline and back bodice seam.  I’m hoping it will give my crepe a nice pop of color-contrast.

In: Sewing

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