Brown Taffeta 18th Century Petticoat

This is the second petticoat I’m making to go over my pocket hoops. (Check out my post about my first, white, petticoat!)

I’m making it out of brown synthetic taffeta-ish stuff shot with blue, from my stash.

You can't really see the blue in the picture.

It is 148x248 cm.

I am using the instructions from "The American Duchess Guide to 18^th Century Dressmaking” book. But I’m doing it by machine. Cause I’m lazy, and in a hurry. I have my first event in a few weeks, and I don’t actually have anything to wear.

I’m going off my measurements from my last petticoat (even though each successive petticoat should be longer, but I want them to be interchangeable, plus any longer will be too long, so same length it is) so that’s 105 at the sides, 90 at the front, 92 at the back

I need the longest spot (over the pocket hoops) to be 105 cm long, and the width to be at least 240ish, but that can be in a few pieces if need be.

It seems to me that I’ll get more width into this petticoat if I cut it the short way on the fabric, since then I’ll get 296cm width (148x2=296), instead of the 248 I’ll get if I cut it the long way and save myself a side seam. So two side seams it is!

And since this fabric is slightly directional, I’ll have to cut both pieces in the same direction, which is a waste of fabric, but oh well.

I cut the two panels out on the fold

Opened them and pinned

Then I marked the pocket slits. On my previous petticoat, I made them too long, so this time I measured the slits on my pocket hoops, instead of using the measurement it says in the book. I made them 15cm.

So I sewed the side seams up until the opening for the pocket slit.

Because the side seams are on the selvage, I don’t have to hem/French seam/flat fell them. Yay for me!

I do, however, need to fold over and hem the pocket slits.

So I did that.

I also took the opportunity (being as I was at the machine) to hem the bottom, cause it was starting to fray, and also… I was already at the machine.

I then started pleating the pleats

Apparently I did them wrong on my previous petticoat, where I folded them along the cut line (top of petticoat), and apparently you’re supposed to fold them along the grain of the fabric, so that stairs form along the waistline.

Observe the stairs:

So that took me a few hours

The pleats go away from the center front, where there is a big box pleat, to the center back, where there is an inverted box pleat.

I then sewed my 2cm cotton twill tape along that line. Here I ran into a problem. On my previous petticoat, I sewed the tape 1cm from the edge, however on this petticoat the edge is not even, so I didn’t really know what to do. In the end I put it ½ cm away from the closest edge, which put it 1-1 ½ cm away from the farthest edge. I hope it evens out.

I then folded the tape over to the other side 

and prick-stitched it down (by hand) on the bottom edge of the twill tape.

On my previous petticoat I machine sewed two seams on top of the tape, but I didn’t want to do that here, cause I figured it would be more obvious from the outside on this fabric, and also, this petticoat is probably going to be seen from the outside, so hand stitching it is!

It was quite relaxing- I like hand stitching, and this was the only hand stitching I did on this project.

Aaand it’s finished!

In this next picture the white petticoat is visible underneath where the wind blew it up. Because both petticoats are the same length, the white petticoat hangs lower than the brown one when they're worn on top of each other. I had to (safety) pin the hem of the white one up 10cm so that it wouldn't show.

In the end, after all that agonizing, my pocket slits were too small, and I might have to make them bigger.

Also, I think the pleats don't hang perpendicular enough to the floor. I should have made a steeper staircase in the pleats. 

But I won't bother about all that right now. I might fix it at a later date.

On to the next project!