Lingerie Sew-Along: Tap Panties Finishing Touches Part 11!

I'm ba-ack. Well, to finish my vacation off nicely I had a horrible cold the whole time, and now that we're back and my husband is even more sick than I was, and we've added jet lag and no sleep to the mix? I'm stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllll sick. Ugh.

I really hate leaving you all hanging though, and I'm heavily dosed up with cold medicine right now, so LET"S DO THIS!
There are a few different ways you can finish your inside facings. You can serge the edges and tack them by hand onto the seam allowance, pink them and leave them loose, douse them in vodka and set them on fire, but my favorite is to tape them down. Not the scotch tape way, of course, but the fusible kind like this Dritz Stitch Witchery.

You can use it to fuse two layers of fabric together, or to finish raw edges with seam tape.

Here I have laid down a strip of the (shinny) fusible tape. Next I just stick the (very pretty) vintage rayon seam tape over top and a quick press with the iron makes it permanent.

I finished the whole of my facings raw edges like this, making sure that the facing raw edge matched up with the raw edges of the seam allowance where the yoke joined the pantie.

Next up is simply binding the raw edge of the pantie with bias binding, just like we did with the top edge of the bra, only it's much easier this time.

 Now the closure part is pretty important. If you were thinking like me and wanted just one closure on one side... think about this first: If you have just one closure, as it is, it will not really fit over your hips. Seriously... this will be a problem. The solution is to have the closure on both sides, or to cut the one closure about 2" deeper and just add more buttons or snaps.

These pictures show the ribbon loops that I sewed to my bound edge to close the openings on the "V of Doom" version. If you were lucky enough not to do that, then here is how you make a placket to close your panties.

I have a very large collection of sewing books from every era and almost all of them are silent on how to make a placket in shorts or tap pants. They all stick to skirt plackets which are a bit different. The best way I ever found to make a lingerie placket is in Art of Dressmaking published by Butterick 1927 which actually tels you the best placket to sew for UNDERWEAR. Yay!
Here it is:

Trust me, this is way better than I could explain a placket, especially given that my fabric is all plaid and I'd pretty much make you go cross-eyed trying to make heads or tails of my pictures. So that's how you sew a placket. For other closure ideas, you can bind the edges of the slit and sew hooks and eyes, buttons or whatever you like.

Katrina from Acting My (Vint)Age made a lovely closure using hook and eye tape. Check out her great post on the gorgeous lingerie she made from the sew along!

And now for the finished project photos!  (Hey, no judgement. I was trying to do this at lightning speed so I get get out the door to catch a plane :)... Plus I need to loose 10 lbs and have a sit down with my photographer who would much rather be playing video games than hold still long enough to take pictures... I will name no names.)

Well? How did your turn out? Can we have pictures? Obviously no one is expecting you to email me photos of you wearing lingerie, but some nice hanger shots would be great! Also, questions, comments? Did I miss anything? Is anyone out there? :)

And it's back to bed with me to sleep off this horrid cold.