Skip to main content

Pretty Peplum Top Sew Along: Finishing + Turning the Peplum into a Dress

We're in the home stretch! All we have to do is stitch the bottom hem and sleeve hem, then we're finished! I wouldn't normally talk about what to do for this, but Pamela has an ingenious way to get a really nice hem. I have been using it on other projects too and it's been great!

Pamela uses stay tape to finish all her hems. She likes to use SewkeysE brand, which we talked about HERE. You can also refer to the video on stay tapes in that blog post. SewkeysE has a 1" Double sided Fusible Stay Tape. If you are using this brand of stay tape for this project, you will need to cut the stay tape down to 1/2". I did not have this brand of stay tape at the time, so I found Pellon EZ- Steam II - a Two sided pressure sensitive Fusible Tape at a local fabric store. You will see that I used it in the photos below, but I'd like to try SewkeysE in the future. It was hard to get the tape off of the fusible part once it is fused down. But once you got it apart, it peeled right off.


Press the stay tape to the wrong side of the hem edge. Since the peplum is curved, you will need to cut the stay tape like Pamela mentions in the video. Remove the paper backing, fold up using the edge of the stay tape as your guide and press. Stitch in place! How easy is that? Do the same for the sleeves. If you make the longer sleeves (or any other length than the cap sleeves) use the 1" stay tape. For the cap sleeve cut the 1" down to 1/2".




I know a few of you were wondering how you could make the peplum top into a dress. I was curious too and decided to give it a try. It's actually really easy! All you need is some extra fabric (I would say about 2 yards extra), pattern paper, a yard stick or long ruler and a marking tool. The amount of yardage you need will depend on how long you want the dress to be.

Fold the fabric in half, I like to do right sides together. Then line up the peplum front piece with the top of the fold. You want to make sure you have plenty of space for the dress length.



Take a yard stick or long plastic ruler and line it up against one of the peplum side seams. Mark this length. For this demo, I have the dress 18" longer than the peplum piece. (If you see the photo above, the 18" mark is right at the bottom edge of the peplum. 



Move the ruler a few inches, keeping the ruler and bottom edge of pattern piece together at the 18" mark. Make another mark. Do this the whole way across the peplum till you have a complete skirt.




If you feel like the skirt is too big, you can make it smaller! You can adjust it when you try it on, or before cutting out. If you do it before cutting out, line up your ruler at the peplum waist. Then move the ruler till you feel like you're at a good width. The key is to make sure you keep the sizing at the waist so you don't have fit issues later!


Repeat the same step for the back peplum piece. Follow the same steps for the rest of the garment. How easy was that?

Here is my finished Pretty Peplum Dress. It's been so cold outside to get good pictures, so this will have to do for now! I like the overall look, but in certain photos the waistline does not look flattering to me. I think this may have something to do with the fact that I did not cut out the darted front top piece. Read about that HERE. I plan on taking the front piece out and re-cutting the front with the darted piece.


Tomorrow, I will share with you my finished peplum tops with some commentary about what I did on each. I'd love to see how your peplum tops are coming along! Please share photos with me and I'll share them on the blog! (Finished top photos will be due at a later time to be considered for the sew along prizes!) 

ALSO! One of our followers, Angela, submitted photos of her muslin --so far so good! Can't wait to see it finished! 




Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for leaving a comment! All comments are reviewed before posting to help us eliminate spam. Your comment will be posted within 24 hours.

Popular Posts You Might Like

Made By A Fabricista: Liberty Snow Day

Hi everyone! While we’ve been blanketed with snow out here in Southeastern PA, I decided to conquer my fear of button holes and make NewLook pattern N6749. I was able to snag a few yards of the Jess + Jean print Liberty of London Tana Lawn for it. It’s always exciting when Fabric Mart is able to get Liberty fabrics in! I always make sure to grab some.  Cutting into a beautiful piece of tana lawn is scary every time. The fabric is such good quality, I’m afraid to mess it up! I had to be extra careful as this is also the first directional pattern I’ve worked with. But one of my assistants made sure all of my pieces were laid correctly. Something I wanted to try out with this dress was finishing the inside seams using the overlock stitch on my domestic machine. Normally I would french seam, but it was nice to not have to worry about cutting seam allowance in half, sewing, trimming, flipping, and sewing again. Next time I would cut the seam allowance back before overlocking, but I thin...

Made By A Fabricista: Embracing Winter in Wool Boucle

As winter drags on, the cold weather is such a bummer to me and feeling uncomfortable and cold so often is rough. Meanwhile, I listened to a podcast all about how people in very northern countries deal better with the onset of dark, freezing winter with a radically different mindset of embracing the inevitable season by reframing the chill as refreshing and the opportunity to spend most time indoors as cozy. I can do that!  I found a gorgeous, quintessential wool boucle suiting in black and white to make myself a luxurious outer layer while I’m outside attempting to embrace the sting of dry winter air… It’s kind of working. So classic, so chic! Wearing boucle is always an uptown move and I certainly do feel sophisticated in it. This black and white houndstooth combination feels especially Old Hollywood, and what a treat to make something with this!  I sewed the Daphne Jacket from Vivian Shao Chen. There are no closures, and the shape is boxy and very easy to wear over multipl...

Made By A Fabricista: Sewing + Running

It’s not every day that I get to mix two of my favorite hobbies. Especially when one hobby is sewing and the other is running. You can’t sew and run at the same time, but, you can go running in something that you sewed! With this realization, I embarked on my first hobby-merging adventure.  We’ve had some frigid temperatures in Pennsylvania this winter. Since I’m an outside, stroller-pushing runner, I bundle up my son and myself before I hit the road. The temperature feels 20 degrees warmer for outside runners than the outside air. For the children being pushed in the stroller though, it feels about 20 degrees colder.  With these differences in temperature for each of us, layering is the only thing that ensures that we both stay perfectly warm. My running wardrobe has been lacking a warm top layer. My son’s wardrobe would also benefit from having another warm layer, so I knew pullovers were what I should make.  Inspired by a name-brand ¼ button-down fleece pullover I saw,...