Sewing Projects: Peter Pan & Peplum Tutorial

Sewing Projects: A Very Short, Seamstressy Refashioning Memoir/Tutorial: I Made a Pretty Peter Pan Blouse (With a Peplum Ruffle) From Thrifted Stuff.  And Lived To Tell The Tale.  Hence This Post.

You may remember the pretty pink peter pan peplum project I posted last week. (By “project”, I mean blouse…saying project makes me sound efficient, clever, and capable). I’m thinking the only possible way you wouldn’t remember my delightful peter pan peplum project/blouse is if you weren’t here. Which is unfortunate, but you’re here now. Let’s enjoy the now.

The Project/Blouse Begins:

(Raw Materials: Thrifted Skirt & Thrifted Shirt. Which rhymes, but that’s not important here. What is important: The shirt—which had ethereal, worn qualities and colors I admired– became the foundation of the project/blouse, while the skirt (also daintily wounded) provided the scant yardage needed for the peter pan collar and the peplum…and the flower embellishment. New additions. This was cannibalism at its gentlest and most socially acceptable.)

The Shirt, Disarmed

I wanted shorter arms, and a scooped neckline. These are daring free-lance moves, fellow seamstresses; they build character. If you do this, make sure that when you cut off arms and collars, you do it symmetrically. Unless asymmetry is appealing to you (asymmetry requires complete commitment, and further daring). And maybe…perhaps you should try the shirt on first and sort of map out with pins or pens where you want the new neck and sleeve lines to be, taking seam allowances into consideration, before you actually cut the shirt. Not that I do this. But I believe those are good ideas.

The Skirt: Serendipitous Yardage.  I Cut Ruffles and A Collar From It.

The Easiest Ruffle (and the flippy-flirtiest) Have Circular Origins.

Think circular skirts, where your waist is clasped perfectly by the very center (donut-hole) of the circle, and the hem is actually the outer perimeter of it. No need to gather, but lots of graceful fullness. My ruffle/peplum was assembled from a series of donut inspired circles. The pattern piece I used is actually for a little ruffle on a small girl’s dress (vintage 60’s pattern); I cut a bunch, cut a line along the radius of each circle, and sewed the circles together, radius to radius. Radii. Radical.

Collar Pieces… Frontside Backside Inside Outside.

(which also rhymes…and this time is relevant.  I needed all these pieces for a finished collar…back, front, top, bottom…and I used lining for reinforcement and substantiality. Lest I lapse too far into flimsy frivolousness, as I am wont to do under the influence of pink. An earlier post shows how to make your own peter pan pattern pieces to exactly fit your project).

Collar Top, Assembled (The lining is hidden underneath that bottom layer)

I Sewed The Ruffle to The Shirt Bottom

And Pinned The Collar to The Revised Neckline, Adding a Bias Facing to Cover The Raw Edges Inside The Shirt Neckline.  And Then, I Read A Little Poetry, Needing Reprieve From Bias-ness.

The bias piece is just a long narrow strip (about 1 1/2″) of fabric cut diagonally through the skirt fabric’s grain. This particular cut…diagonal through the grain, makes a stretchier strip of fabric…easier to mold to curves, like necklines. Which is convenient, since the emerging blouse needs a neck facing to cover raw edges.

Exercising My Left Brain, I Turned the Facing Back Inside The Emerging Blouse, and Stitched It In Place

Right Brain Happiness: Flower Embellishment, By The Way… (for more detailed instructions, see my pink pencil skirt refashion notes)

The End! After snipping trailing threads and removing lingering pins and possibly ironing…I Wore The Blouse!  And Took Pictures, As Proof.

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