Padding a Peplum

Hey readers, remember when I used to blog about garments I was making? Well, I've still been making garments. To be specific, I've made TWENTY-SEVEN GARMENTS without blogging about them. That's hard for someone like me, who can go on and on about the most mundane sewing topics. Twenty-seven garments, and not a peep. But I decided that I can show you the inner workings of a jacket peplum, since it doesn't really give much away.

Over a year ago, I wrote about hip padding in vintage suits. As you probably know, I love any sort of intricate inner workings on a garment: boning, pad stitching, etc. But I had yet to try hip padding . . . until now! I love the look of padded hips, and they've been favored by such varied designers as Christian Dior and Alexander McQueen. There aren't many instructions for this kind of thing out there, so I pretty much winged it (wung it?). First I thought I would pad stitch the hips as I did for the underside of the lapel of the jacket, but the stitches showed a bit on the outside. So instead I made a little inner padding.

I started with a layer of needlepunch in the shape of the peplum (with the seam allowances cut off); needlepunch is just a very firm batting. I cut out the darts on the peplum, and zigzagged them together.

I did the same thing to a layer of hair canvas and layered it with the peplum. I beveled the upper edge of the layers so they wouldn't create a ridge on the outside of the jacket.

Next, I padstitched the peplum in vertical rows, leaving the bottom inch or so unstitched.

For the bottom inch, I changed direction and used a shorter stitch to encourage the peplum to round toward the body. (This is what you do on the outside edge of a lapel to get it to curl toward the chest.) As I was padstitching, I curved the padding over my hand to shape it.

The pad stitching can go all the way through the layers, since it won't show on the outside at all.

Next, I pinned it to the jacket underlining and catch stitched it in place.

Finally, I steamed the whole thing together over a ham and let it dry.

That's it! It resulted in a very shapely peplum, and I was pleased with the result. It was still a bit soft, though, so I think I might try layers of buckram, hair canvas, and muslin next time (as suggested by the pattern I blogged here) for even more shaping.

Hope you've enjoyed this little garment post. I'm now done with said TWENTY-SEVEN garments (yes, dramatic caps are necessary), so I can start sewing for fun again soon. And I have a plan: it's back to VoNBBS!