1780's Petticoats

After the grind of making stays and various other necessary but tedious pieces of underwear, I was finally ready to make petticoats!

I originally planned to make three petticoats but to save money I cut it down to two. Also, it's really hot at the moment, summer in New Zealand is terrible. The first petticoat is made from cotton broadcloth, the second cotton lawn. I was worried that the lawn would be too light on it's own, so I picked the broadcloth for some extra body. After working with both the fabrics I realize that two lawn petticoats would have been fine.

The broadcloth petticoat is 4m of fabric and the lawn is 5m. I did far more maths than I wanted to try and get an even hem over my bumroll, and both petticoats turned out shorter than I wanted.  As you can see, the hem on the broadcloth petticoat didn't even turn out straight. I used a combination of American Duchess's tutorial and Diary of a Mantua Maker's guide.

The broadcloth petticoat was my 'practice' one, it was the lawn petticoat I wanted to be a poofy and frilly pile of fun. The broadcloth was slightly too heavy, but not as bad as I had feared it might be. Both petticoats have french seams, pocket slits, and a slipstitched waistband tied with grosgrain ribbon.  The pocket slits sit awkwardly on the end of my bumroll, which sometimes makes the side seams fall weird, but I can still use them fine.

I imaged a giant ruffle on the bottom of the lawn petticoat, but I didn't realize how little 5m of fabric was for this. I'm still happy with the poof levels though, and the length is perfect. The heading of the ruffle is pinked and the hem is left raw using the selvedge to keep it light and floaty. This was my first time pinking something, and i'll be interested to see how it holds up on the lawn.

I absolutely love the silhouette it gives, and I can start to get a feel for the shape and amount fabric needed for my first dress.

I also decided to colour code my petticoats, for a bit of fun. The broadcloth one is tied with pale blue grosgrain ribbon, the pocket slits are finished with matching embroidery thread and the centre back of the waistband has a blue monogram I embroidered onto it. The lawn petticoat has the same in pink.

I'd monogram everything if I could, I love adding little details that often end up hidden. It feels great to almost be out of underwear land and into a proper dress!