Then I realised/remembered that hoops don't move the same way as layers of petticoats do. Weighed down with 3-7 layers of petticoats means your skirt doesn't have that light and airy sway that a crinoline would have. In my opinion, it would probably be noticeable if I wore a hoop over a corded petticoat.
So I was resigned. I looked up Izabela Pitcher's Victorian Dressmaker book, where she has instructions on corded petticoats, and followed her guidance.
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| It's all party in the back |
The Making of...
Izabela made an 1830s one I think, which is smaller than the ones worn in the 1840s and 1850s prior to the patent of the cage crinoline. Her recommendation for width in the 1830s is between 2.5m and 3m, and this gets larger as the deacades go on. I also knew from conversations with other costumers that if you make it too wide it'll just collapse in on itself.
So, what was the perfect measurement? I, luckily, decided on 3.5 metres, and you'll see why it was lucky I choose this number.
I didn't really feel like white, so went for a very light beige coloured cotton poplin. I bought 5m....and it wasn't enough.
If you add rows of cording to anything you need to add length/width to your fabric to make up for the fabric getting used by the cording. Izabela recommended 10" at the minimum, larger if you were using thicker cord. I think her recommendation for cord thickness was between 4mm and 10mm, but it might've been a larger range.
I was going to go for 6mm, but found it difficult to source, so settled on 8mm cotton cord, and bought 80m of it.
There's 2 ways to make a corded petticoat. You can use one long length of fabric and fold it in half length wise, and sandwich the cord between them. Or you can cut out two panels of the right width, sew them together at the hem. They're pretty much the same thing. I preferred just cutting one long length of fabric and folding it in half, hence no need for a hem.
You take your waist to hem measurement (I opted for it at my ankle so it wouldn't be seen peeking out from the hem of the dress), and then add 10". I was going to add more because my cord was quite thick, but it was already quite difficult measuring the length needed for one panel (I have a small sewing room, and no floor space to do it that way, so it involved measuring x", then folding that and measuring a further x" until I get to overall n. In other words, a faff.
I'm relatively tall, at 5"7, so doubling my waist-hem measuremnt, and then adding 10" meant I was eating through 5m of fabric very quickly. Then I came to the end, one panel short. I needed 3 panels the width of the fabric, I only managed to get 2.
Not wanting to buy more fabric, and knowing I have a drawer full of cottons I don't use, I set to looking through the stash, and found the tartan I've had for about 4 years that I did have earmarked for a bucket list project. The tartan is a very popular print and so easily replaceable. It was a bit thin, though, so I wanted to back it in something more substantial, adn thankfully found the remnants of a purple cotton poplin I used for my first bustle era day dress. I ended up using both methods of making a corded petticoat in the end.
I sewed the panels together, but left the last seam undone, so I just had one 3.5m length of fabric. I folded them in half, or at least as close to a half as possible because my measuring and cutting is shocking and none were the exact same length.
Then it was cording time. I, hand on heart, thought this would be tedious, boring, and make me question why I do this hobby in the first place. But you know what, it was so cathartic and satisying. I'd definitely make another one of these.
The first cord at the hem was the trickiest, making sure there was no wrinkling and that I had actually put it halfway down the panels and one side wasn't shorter than the other. But after that it was smooth sailing.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a quick process, but would obviously be quicker with smaller petticoats from earlier decades. I was listening to podcasts with my headphones on, the iron was plugged in, and I used the ironing board to press the cords into place as close to the previous row as possible, making sure I didn't catch some extra fabric as I went.
There were a few mistakes, and I've never been through so many bobbins in my life, but I always caught the mistakes relatively quickly. I think I used 6-7 different thread colours, all remnants on bobbins from past projects, so now I have all my bobbins free to use again.
I think I may have been a bit too heavy handed on the cording. There's no real guidelines or rules on the placement. Some extant have few, some are fully corded from hem to waist. I think it depends on decade and thickness of cord. I think the thinner the cord the more rows you can put in, but because mine was 8mm, I don't think I needed as many as I put in.
I did a graded effect. There's 5 at the hem, a gap of about 3", a group of 4, then 2" gap, a group of 3, and so on. The gap between groups of cord was never more than 3", but I think further towards the top I could've made it bigger.
I like the effect, and the shape ot gives is spectacular, but boy is it heavy! I didn't use all the cording, I estimate there to be about 10-15m left of the 80 I bought, but that's still between 60 and 70m of cording in it.
Once all the cording was done it was time to gather it. I made the mistake of not sewing the last seam before I ran the gathering stitches. If I'd done this I would've noticed that they didn't match up.
I've never been able to draw a straight line, even with a ruler. This goes back to school days and is a long standing problem. I can't sew particularly straight either, so there was no hope for this petticoat really.
What I should've done was sew the side seams, matching rows as best I could (things only started going awry about half way up), and then cutting off the excess at the top. Obviously because I'd already spent an hour running gathering stitches through the top, there's this weird excess on one of the panels that I needed to pleat and sew down. But it's hardly noticeable.
I also gathered it a bit too tightly, as there's no overlap of the panels, only the waistband. Again, hardly noticeable.
Rather than hook and bar that I usually use for petticoats, which have proved not to be as sturdy as I'd thought, I opted for a button. Did I have one of a matching colour? No. Was I going to buy one? No. So massive black button it is.
