18th Century Petticoat (method 2)

After making my first petticoat I realised that attempting to hem a petticoat evenly over a bum roll was near impossible. Firstly you cannot do it on a mannequin because you have a very different posture to the mannequin. Secondly having to take more off the front than the back makes it very difficult to get even or pretty as you end up sewing diagonal hems which don’t always fall right. So I did what I should have done the first time and took the fabric from the top for the Peggy and Eliza petticoats.

1. Measure from waist to floor over the bum roll at the front, sides and back of your waist. Draw a sketch like below to help you keep track of your measurements.

   

   My measurements were 119cm, 116cm, 113cm

2. Your fabric needs to be at least 150cm wide and as long as twice the side waist measurement (or the front waist + back waist measurement if this is greater). I used bed skirts to make these two petticoats because they were cheap and already had the ruffles on them.
3. When you cut your fabric in half it needs to be cut as below. The picture on the left is for 150 cm wide cotton, the picture in the middle would be for fabric <150 cm wide whilst the one on the right is how I cut my bed skirt.

   

   The red and blue lines show how you might have to make two cuts depending on if your front+back lengths are equal to twice your side lengths. If the side lengths are less you’ll be cutting the blue and black lines, if it’s more you’ll be cutting the red and black lines, if the same you’ll cut the black line only. I hope I haven’t confused you too much!

4. I then pleated as I described in my first method, taking a front measurement and pleating by eye down to this. I did this on my mannequin then wrapped a ribbon around the waist once I was sure the hem was even. This way I had a bit more control over the length and could get a more even hem.
5. 

   Pinning by eye

   

   Ribbon tied over the top

   

   pins transferred over ribbon

   Add a ruffle if you haven’t used a bed skirt, or a lace trim if you want.

6. And you’re finished.
   

   Eliza’s green petticoat

   

   

   And Peggy’s white one

   

18th Century Petticoat (method 1)

This is a post detailing the making of the petticoats for my Schuyler Sisters project. Unlike a lot of my other petticoats these are made of cotton, not tulle! My sewing machine is grateful for this as it often moans after having to sew miles of tulle.

As displayed by the image below the Schuyler sisters have fairly full petticoats- either two layers or one with a ruffle. As the costumes are stage costumes I lean towards the latter as the less layers you wear on stage the better. This picture also tells us that the petticoats are most definitely not in an authentic 18th century style because you can see the layers of Angelica’s petticoat are made of what looks like organza- not fabric they had in the 18th century. So I decided to be historically accurate and make 1 cotton petticoat.

Look at those skirts- froofy organza goodness and Peggy’s has lace!

Additionally one petticoat is so much better for the wallet than multiple petticoats (especially since I’m making petticoats for three different people)

Only £3 with enough fabric for this petticoat and another dress!

Since I’m not getting paid for my petticoat I decided to make it as cheap as possible by using an old duvet sheet I picked up in the charity shop (above). It was a double duvet so I have enough fabric left to make a whole other petticoat if I wanted. And yes it’s polka dotted but I feel this adds some fun to the garment.

I also decided to colour code the three sets of clothes so I didn’t get mixed up. As I’m going as Angelica I decided pink could be my colour and bought 3 meters of pink ribbon for the waistband.

There are some great tutorials for 18th century petticoats out there, and they all basically say the same thing;

1. You will in total need a piece of fabric at least 3 meters long, however a lot of cotton comes in 150cm wide rolls, therefore you can just buy 2 times your waist to ankle measurement (over the bumroll) plus whatever you need for a ruffle.
2. However long your fabric is split it in half, one piece will form the back section and one the front.
3. Find the centre of your piece of fabric and begin knife pleating inwards, towards the centre, away from the side seam until the fabric is pleated down to a half of your corseted waist measurement (+ seam allowance). It doesn’t matter if your pleats are even or messy, just make sure you pin them fully.
4. Once you’ve pleated both sides you can sew the ribbon waistband on, make sure you sew at the top and bottom of the ribbon to keep the pleats in place.

   

   As you can see the pleats are really messy and uneven, but this doesn’t matter as much in a foundation garment as it would in the outer skirt

5. Sew up the side seams, except the top 10″ so you can get to the pockets, turn the seam allowances of these under to keep it neat.
6. Put on your mannequin or human over the bum roll and try to hem it evenly (inevitably fail at doing so, as the pictures below demonstrate).NB: My posts on Peggy and Eliza’s petticoats (which will be up this week are here) explain another method which involves taking off the extra length at the waist, rather than the hem. I found this method much more productive.
   

   Before hemming

   

   After hemming
7. Add a ruffle if you want, this can be knife pleated, box pleated or plain gathered. I would recommend the ruffle starts around your mid calf so that it can flow properly. A way to bypass this step is to buy a bed skirt– they already have the ruffle attached (this is actually what I did for my Peggy and Eliza skirts)
8. And you’re done! Place over your bum roll and stays, then swish around to your hearts content while questioning if it really was fashionable to have a huge bum in the 18th century!

The Making of a Rainbow Petticoat

This post is going to detail the maths and engineering behind my rainbow petticoat pictured in construction above. I made it to go with my rainbow corset also pictured above and so it had to be two things;

1) rainbow coloured

2) entirely impractical

I debated making a traditional swing petticoat using many different colours, then realised I wouldn’t be able to see half the colours when it was worn so instead decided (in my wisdom) that I would make a 5 layer petticoat- one layer for each colour (red, orange/yellow, green, blue and purple). I then decided that each layer would take on a traditional swing petticoat form (see diagram to the side). My bottom tier was only 2.5 cm wide, my second and top tiers were 16cm wide. I then planned to add a small cotton section at the top of the petticoat for comfort and also so it didn’t add body directly at the waist.

I then planned out how I would cut each of my layers. My top tier (lilac) was 150cm, so each of my second tiers (green/pink) had to be 3m and the bottom tiers (blue/yellow) 6m. My fabric was 150cm wide so I cut 3 strips 18cm wide (1cm seam allowance on each side) and 10 strips  5cm wide. I sewed the strips together using a French seam- you sew together right sides facing out then turn the seam inside out and enclose the first line of stitches. I then labelled each bundle. This was very important, especially with the top two layers which were the same width so I couldn’t tell them apart.

When making a multi-layered petticoat it’s best to cut each layer separately, even if each layer is a different colour. This will stop accidents happening leading to miles of unpicking.

I first sewed one row of basting stitches along the top of my two thinnest tiers (blue/yellow). These were gathered down and pinned two the second tiers (pink/green). I did this using a quarter pinning technique- I matched up the ends, the mid point and the quarter points then gathered between these points. The final job was to gather onto the top tier using the same technique. Once each layer was complete I then sewed up the back seam of each layer, so I had 5 circles of net each with a 1.5m circumference.

I now had to make sure the layers all sat where I wanted them to. I arranged them on my mannequin so that they were slightly staggered and the effect was the same the whole way around the petticoat, then pinned the layers onto a piece of cotton at the seam, half and quarter points. This piece of cotton was 1m long. The top tier was then gathered down to the length of the cotton tier and attached. I created a channel at the top of the cotton tier and threaded through some ribbon. One finished multi-layered, multi-coloured petticoat.

Petticoats

One of the most important things for me to make is petticoats, and it’s one of my biggest money makers. It’s also one of the things whereby the tutorials out there are good, but all lacking something. I had to watch numerous videos and experience a lot of trial and error before I got a method that worked.

There are many different types of petticoat with many different uses, and I’ve at some point in time made most of them. This is the cover page for my petticoat tutorials; I’ll link the actual tutorials out from here, this post is just basic rules, guidelines and descriptions.

First rule of making petticoats; always buy good net.

Now this doesn’t mean go out and buy the most expensive net you can find, it means go and find the net which will suit your job. If you are making a petticoat that will be visible you want a net with very small holes, maybe even a stiff tulle. If you’re making a huge, many layered petticoat you’ll need cheaper fabric (if you want to be economical) and much stiffer fabric with larger holes so the entire thing doesn’t weigh a lot and you don’t need 8-9 layers of petticoat. Each tutorial I write will have guidance for which fabrics would be best, even if I personally don’t use them.

Second rule of making petticoats; always buy more than you need

No matter how careful you are with your calculations you are destined at some point to cut something wrong, or realise this level needs just that little bit more oomph. If you have to go to your fabric shop to buy more fabric, or even order it online this can be tiresome and annoying. I’m not saying buy 2-3 meters more, I’m just saying buy an extra 50 cm. It could save you a lot of hassle.

Third and final rule of making petticoats; plan until all you can think of is petticoats

This is actually what I do, I’ll draw up a basic design and some approximate measurements and then spend a week covering my notes and any paper I can find (even my tablet notepad) with the design, drawn over and over again and surrounded by calculations. Once you’re absolutely certain you know exactly what you’re doing draw out a final design neatly (I do it in a specific book set aside specifically for this). Label all of your measurements clearly and write a clear list of exactly how much of everything you’ll need. How much net, fabric, thread, elastic, ribbon, bias binding, hook and eyes, zips….. literally everything. Only when you’re sure that you know exactly what you’re doing should you buy anything. Only when you’re sure you know exactly what you’re doing should you cut anything- and label everything you cut. Numerous times I’ve ended up with strips of dress net strewn over my floor with no idea what goes where. Label everything.

If you follow these 3 fundamental rules then making petticoats should come pretty easy. It doesn’t involve any fancy techniques or maths- it’s just gathering one piece of fabric onto another and repeating.

Sounds pretty simple really!