SEWING Technique makes it possible to camouflage seam allowance

The challenge was to make an unobtrusive seam in the black lace material.
By SUSAN KHALJE
SCRIPPS HOWARD
I worked with a fabulous group of sewers recently in San Francisco, and the projects on which they were working were wonderfully challenging.
One of the most fun -- and certainly one of the most challenging -- aspects of sewing is the problem-solving that we have to do along the way, and it's particularly satisfying when something really does work well. I'd like to share one of the techniques that was particularly helpful.
M. was working on a charming lace dress -- strapless, princess seams, dropped waist, circular skirt, with a pretty moir & eacute; grosgrain ribbon around the waist that tied with a bow. The fashion fabric was a champagne-colored bodied Thai silk, and layered on top of it was a gorgeous piece of black Chantilly lace. There were numerous underlayers in the bodice to support the fabric and to camouflage the boning; there was also a waist stay to anchor the boning and help hold the entire dress in place.
But the tricky part was the skirt. M. and I were able to cut the lace so that there was only one seam, along the left side, below the side zipper. M. wanted the skirts to hang independently -- a lace skirt over a silk skirt -- so the challenge was to make an unobtrusive seam in the black lace.
If the lace had been the same color as the underskirt, M. could have sewn a neat French seam; or even a simple seam, nicely trimmed and carefully pressed open. But either of those treatments in black lace -- over a light-colored fabric -- would have left a very noticeable black stripe down one side of the skirt. Even the narrowest of seam allowances would have been jarring, not to mention fragile.
Disappearing act
Fortunately, I remembered a haute couture technique that I'd seen in a Valentino gown, in which a dark seam allowance was encased in light-colored silk organza. It's absolutely magical -- the seam allowance virtually disappears.
M. and I tea-dyed a bias strip of silk organza until it matched the color of the Thai silk underskirt (it only took a second or two in the tea), then used it as a traditional bias binding to cover the black Chantilly lace seam allowance. M. made the strip wide enough so that two layers of silk organza would cover each side of the seam allowance (we started out with a piece 1-1/2 inches wide -- four times the width of our 3/8-inch seam allowance).
M. sewed one side on by machine, then carefully pressed and folded the fabric into place, and invisibly sewed the second side by hand. It worked perfectly -- the seam allowance was completely camouflaged by the silk organza, and M. was thrilled with the solution. I'm so glad I remembered it!