I’m back once again with more peplum-icious images for you.
First things first… in my last post I made a reference to my hippy-hips not being suitable for a peplum. I’m not sure who was the first to mention that to me, but I’ve always had the general idea that anything that ends at the widest part of your body is a no-no for looking slender. So I think part of me has assumed that a peplum was a ‘don’t’ for pear-shaped gals like myself.
With that being said, that isn’t deterring me from making or wearing peplums since they are just plain great. I’ve always been of the mind: Make/Sew/Wear what makes you happy. But it would be a lie if I didn’t mention that I do try to keep in the back of my mind what looks good/bad on me & my figure.
On Tuesday, I showed you up to the point where I had finished basting the peplum. So bright and early on Sunday I got to work at stitching it up on the machine.
(Color is a bit off here… this should be cranberry not hot pink.)
I was toying around with the idea of hand stitching down the scalloped silk underlay of the peplum, but ultimately decided that would just be too time consuming and tedious. So I opted to stitch the scallops down by machine.
I used one of the smaller stitch lengths on my machine (15 sts per inch?) with a similarly small zig-zag stitch. I wanted to try to finish the seam allowance of the silk, while I sewed the underlay to the lace which is why I went the zig-zag route.
From here, I cut the seam allowance of the silk crepe away from the lace using my sharpest, little buttonhole scissors.
Cutting detail:
This was incredibly time-consuming and stressful work; I even had scissor marks pressed into my skin by the time I was done. I had to take care that I didn’t accidentally clip into the lace while I was cutting the silk crepe.
Felix graciously came into the sewing/dining room to take these pictures for me. I clipped as close to the stitching as I could; the seam allowance is close to 1/8 or 1/16 of an inch.
Ta Da!
The peplum is now fully basted and stitched to the underlay.
One of the next tricky pieces on my peplum is the scalloped border I applied to the center front pieces.
Since I wasn’t able to draft a circular peplum piece (in order to retain the scalloped border on the lace) I made my peplum from a giant rectangle: 48″ long x 8″ high.
The main issue this created was the lack of scalloped border to the center front peplum pieces. What I had to do was use the scraps of scalloped edging and stitch them onto my peplum piece.
I pinned the scallop edging to the front of the peplum and basted it in place.
I then went to the machine and stitched down the scallop piece like I had done with the rest of the hem. After that I cut off the excess silk underlay & lace and also did some hand stitching to ensure the lace wouldn’t unravel and to also secure the lace pieces to each other.
The image above really just shows the various basting and machine stitching that was done on the center portion of the peplum. Additionally you can see my pinned pleats that are soon to be sewn.
I don’t have any pictures between this point and the final peplum…
But what I did after this was to:
- Machine baste all of the pleats down (and gave them a light pressing)
- Interface & construct the waist piece
- Stitch the peplum to the waist piece
- Stitch in the ditch to finish the seam allowance on the wrong side of the peplum piece
*My peplum will be removable* hence all the talk about the waist piece.
Here’s the wrong side of the completed peplum:
Here’s the right side (in the worst-lighting ever!):
Most importantly here is the peplum against my dress (on the dress form):
I want to be modest about this but I do have to admit, I’m really happy with how it’s turned out. *hip hip*
I really worked a full day and a half on this peplum, namely because this is the one piece of the dress that excited me the most. It’s the biggest deviation from the original pattern and I think it’s a wonderful addition for a fancy version of the Macaron dress.
When I was planning out the exact peplum design/construction on Friday night (or was it Saturday night…) I was always planning on using just the black lace itself, without the cranberry silk underlay. But the more I was playing around with the different options, the better the dress looked with the cranberry underlay instead of the black lace, all by itself. It was just getting lost over the black skirt section.
You may have spied that I didn’t finish the closure on the peplum yet. I’m going to leave that piece to the very end since I want to get the fit just right when I wear it next Saturday.
I nearly forgot, here’s the back view:
After seeing these pictures with the peplum it looks nearly complete…. yet it’s not! But it does look like it’s coming together nicely if I can say so myself. :)
What I have on my Macaron To-Do list:
- Cut & Assemble Bodice Lining
- Cut & Assemble Skirt Lining
- Attach lining to the dress (by hand)
- Join Bodice to the Skirt
- Side Seam Closure (by hand)
- Insert Lace Godet
- Hem (by hand)
- Finishing Touches: Strap holders, Dress shields, and Hanger loops
So you can see I have a decent amount of work ahead of me still. But I’ve made a schedule for myself, and I should be able to have my dress completed by the early part of next week if all goes well.
I’ve actually allowed myself a whole day over the weekend for the closure and another whole day for the hem which is really silly I know… But I wanted to give myself plenty of time for these two tasks since things can go very awry with the side seam closure as well as just joining the bodice to the skirt. At some parts on the bodice I only have a scant 1/4 seam allowance to work with.
Thanks for bearing with me on all-things-peplum. And I’ll be sure to keep documenting the rest of the process for you all as I wrap up construction on this dress.
In: Sewing
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