Opinions always welcome

[chocolatepot]

While I'm booked in for making an 1820s and 1850s dress for work reenactment needs (unless I don't need to, fingers crossed, hopefully this week I will get started on sewing all the bits I cut out though in case), I've decided that I'm not going to sew any dresses for summer until I've sewn several petticoats. I would really prefer to buy a few from Malco Modes - Amanda reminded me with her recent post - but I simply can't afford to now that I'm trying to cut back, and my outfits really need them.

I'm thinking of making cotton foundation skirts with tiered or ruffled tulle overlays - the tulle won't need binding and will be nice and airy, but sandwiching it between the cotton dress and cotton petticoat will hopefully keep it from doing the bunchy thing that irritates me to death about the Pin-Up Girl crinoline I have. One can be a bit skimpier to go with this dress, which is not as full as most. And while I don't have the budget for it right now, I'd really like to make taffeta petticoats, in white and black, to wear on top for nicer dresses. The only question is - waistband with fastenings or elastic? I'm not a big fan of the slipperyness of elastic, but fastenings strike me as a great way to make myself angry.

It's become suddenly urgent as I've been watching Father Brown every evening for over a week, and Lady Felicia (plus various young, pretty one-off characters) has the most GORGEOUS full-skirted outfits. She also has gorgeous pencil skirt outfits, but they appeal to me less and also just aren't as eye-catching. It's so clear from looking at those and then looking at me in the mirror that I need proper petticoats, especially as one of the dresses I'd like to make this summer is this one, which you can see from the lineart has a lot of skirt to it, and you can see from the way they have it styled over insufficient petticoatage that it needs more than what I already have. I'd also like to remake this one in a cotton rather than blend and with a lot more bust room, and it has a full circle that needs a good puffer. (Even the too-tight one does.)

Comments

[nostalgia]

i like reading about your sewing adventures

[chocolatepot]

I'm glad, I like to entertain and anyway I talk a lot more about them than I actually do them.

[nostalgia]

:)

[mandie_rw]

Heh, I know just what you mean about the bunchy thing...my cheap petti from I-forget-where does that and it's SO annoying. Good luck with your petticoat-making; they're so necessary for a lot of skirts to really look nice, but I haaaaaaaaaaate making them and pretty much refuse. Hence my sad state of one limp vintage petti, one cheap nylon petti, and *finally* my new Malco Modes!

[chocolatepot]

I really really really do not want to make them, but I see no alternatives. :( And I'm sure they're going to turn out badly for one reason or another ... but then I'll have a good reason to buy proper ones, I guess?

So much gathering, though.

[nuranar]

FWIW, I've seen a lady making a petticoat/adding a tulle layer to a theater costume, and she just gathered it with her fingers ahead of the presser foot, no more than 1-2". No science to it, but she just seemed to have a rhythm down and it actually worked really really well. And no fussing with miles of gathering stitches or pins, or the work of trying to pull it up without breaking threads.