1855 Dress Project Progress report: petticoats and skirt

Time flies when you're busy. 

I feel as if I've been moving along steadily on this project and look up to find it's been over a month since I started it. No shame, of course, just another example of how everything takes longer than you think it will––and costs more.

For instance, when I started this project I had three goals in mind: to learn about styles and construction methods of the 1850s, which is about 30 years earlier than the sartorial era I was most familiar with; to sew entirely by the treadle machine and by hand, to see how long it would take; and to use what materials I had on hand, because most frontier women would not be able to just run down to the store and pick up what they were missing. 

For the most part I had the fabric I needed. I had plenty of stiff cotton organdy from an 1880 petticoat project, and a couple lengths of hoop steel, enough for the bottom two rows on the boned/corded petticoat, and some medium-weight cotton for the petticoat itself. But as I researched methods for making early crinolines I found I either needed more boning or all the cord, depending on how "authentic" I wanted to be. 

The most popular style of corded petticoat on the internet can involve up to 100 yards of cotton cording. I knew I didn't want to pay for that, or take the time to sew all that between two layers, much less wear that weight. Fortunately, extant petticoats in museums as well as in Costume In Detail show how multiple solutions were used by dressmakers of the time. Cord, reed, wire, and spring steel were all sewn into petticoats before the patenting of the improved cage crinoline in 1856. 

In the spirit of making do, I decided to be "historically adequate" and compromise: for the best intersection of weight, cost, and functionality, I would do a boned petticoat incorporating two rows of spring steel at the bottom, and several rows of synthetic whalebone (i.e. plastic) above. 

Of course, that cost me about $50 in additional boning and boning channels. I would have had to spend money on SOMETHING, of course, and it's ironic that the cheapest option was still $50, but that's why we only make this type of underwear once, and try to use things from the stash.

Here are two images of the boned petticoat, one just after the channels were installed, the other with the boning in. 

"corded" petticoat pre-boning

under petticoat fully boned

And here is the "crinoline" petticoat, which couldn't be simpler: just three tiers of stiffened cotton organdy, each gathered onto the tier above. This is the first kind of petticoat I learned to make although I got smarter about grading the size of each tier to give it the correct shape. The bottom tier was 186 inches long before gathering, the middle was 140 inches, and the topmost was just under 90 inches. The waistband here was too wide; I cut it down from a deep yoke to a 1" band. Both waistbands are sized to sit just below the waist to reduce bulk at that area. 

Both petticoats together.

Next up was the skirt. When I started this project I intended to repurpose some plaid silk taffeta that wasn't working out for a c1880 bustle dress, but before I went down that punishing road I decided to do something simpler first. I had a big piece of burgundy linen, part of which was already cut out to make a basic gathered skirt. It was intended to be part of an 18th century-style witch costume for Halloween, but between school and everything else I didn't have time to finish it last fall.

I put pockets in the side seams, bound the back placket, and cartridge-pleated the top by hand.

Installing pockets

Skirt over petticoats, with cartridge pleats. Also the tell-tail of my shop helper.

Once the cartridge pleating was done, I promptly decided I didn't like it, and took it all out again. So the next section will be showing the skirt with deep box pleats. I hope to complete the skirt this weekend and do most of the bodice mock-up and construction so the next post should be substantial.