Now that the fitting was out of the way. It was time to figure out construction methods. I had chosen faux leather and stretch lace, two materials I had never worked with before, so this wasn't going to be quick.
I started with the stretch lace which I had already decided to underline with gold colored knit lining from Emma One Sock. A combination of trial and error and online research led me to the conclusion that each set of pieces cut in the lace and the underlining needed to be hand basted together with silk thread. Luckily this pattern had only four pieces. It still took a while, though, as the fabrics liked to move around. I also came to the realization that when it came to the machine sewing, my walking foot was going to be invaluable. I figured out serger settings for finishing the seams and the rolled hem at the bottom of the peplum. I then tested out binding methods and materials. After comparing the results I got with foldover elastic, black rayon knit and knit faux leather I decided on the knit faux leather (The same I used for my Christine Jonson skirt) for binding the neckline and armholes. I played with neckline shapes while the muslin was on my dressform and finally drafted a curved v-neck which I felt worked better for the lace top than the jewel neckline. I left out the back zipper since the fabric had so much stretch and for the same reason ended up taking in the side seams a bit to make it fit right.
The final result:
Another view (with the Christine Jonson stretch faux leather skirt this time):
After the finicky stretch lace/underlining combo the faux leather was going to be easy.... or was it? The sewing itself wasn't too complicated. I used my walking foot so didn't have any problems with the faux leather sticking. For comfort I used a black rayon doubleknit for the bodice back. I *think* I bought it from Gorgeous Fabrics years ago. The invisible zipper insertion went smoothly even though it's been a while since I've put one in. Thank you Kathleen Fasanella! (For the tutorial I used click here, it involves changing the pattern slightly if you're using a commercial pattern but it works beautifully every time) I used the same doubleknit I used for the back for the binding but this time I used a different method, folding it to the inside, understitching it like a facing and topstitching on the right side (thanks to my walking foot again!) I fused the peplum hem with Design Plus double sided fusible tape and then topstitched.
Done. Pretty straightforward. So I tried it on. Uh oh... Dart Fail! I had worked on the front darts in muslins one and two because the placement was off and they came up way too high in the original pattern. I had fixed the problem, so I had thought. It was fine in the muslin and the stretch lace but not so much in faux leather. A little too.... "pointy" . Changing the top to have princess seams would've been the right choice from the beginning for this fabric, but I didn't want to scrap this otherwise beautiful top at this point and I didn't have enough fabric left to redo the whole front. I slept on it and came up with an innovative idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this but I've never seen it before. Faux Princess Seams! I simply sewed a tiny tuck on the wrong side (right sides together) starting from the dart point up till just before the shoulder seam (as far as I could get without having to rip out the shoulder seam and re-sew). It took careful marking to make the "seams" look good and most of all MATCH. If you look closely there are two tiny puckers in the faux leather where I ended the "seams" at the shoulder but they are not noticeable when wearing. The fabric has enough stretch that these tucks didn't affect the fit at all. They do, however, completely fix the "pointy" problem!
And the back:
The fabric is not nearly that "shiny" in real life but that's how it photographed, I'm sure there are some camera settings I could have changed but I don't claim to be a photographer. Just a Happy Sewist :-)
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