1903 Petticoat

Me trying to pose with proper s-bend in the new petticioat

First, all the facts for Historical Sew Monthly.

What the item is: 1903 petticoat.

The Challenge: #3 Stashbusting: Make something using only fabric, patterns, trims & notions that you already have in stash.

Fabric: Vintage sheet with lace and embroidered monogram from my husband's grandmother for skirt and flounce. A softer modern sheet from my grandmother for the flounces. A woven design from what was left of a table cloth I made a blouse of ten years ago, used as decoration.

Pattern: Truly Victorian 1903 Trumpet Skirt (TVE21), with added flounce and ruffles, based on petticoat advertisement pictures. I first made up the skirt, and put a ruffle on the bottom of it. I then added a flounce that also has a ruffle on it.

Year: works  for 1900-1905

Notions: Polyester thread. Hook and eye.

How historically accurate is it? The arrangement with flounce and ruffles is period. I think cotton could have been used for an under petticoat as this, but wool or silk would maybe have been more common? Machine sewing is ok. I did not use period construction methods.

Hours to complete: ca 10 h.(It took quite long time to make all those ruffles, and put on the lace and band decoration. I asked myself quite a few times why I had decided to put a ruffle on a 4 m long flounce...)

First worn: for photo yesterday.

Total cost: 0, as all fabric was gifts or left over from other projects.

 First: I love my hemming presser foot! I works well for the thin fabrics I used for ruffles. Without it would have been quite tedious to hem 10 m of ruffle fabric. (For the second ruffle I cheated and the used selvage instead of hemming.)

Hemming ruffles

 And then: more pictures!

Petticoat before flounce and ruffles

The skirt without any ruffles or decoration except for the tucks. Up to this stage, it went quite fast. Then ruffles occured...

And the finished petticoat, worn over the corset and corset cover, and a bum/hip pad.

Finished petticoat

 The decoration: tucks, a band cut from what was left of an table cloth , and lace (or what it is called) insert. The petticoat seems to give volume quite well! Remains to see how effective it is when a skirt is worn on top of it.

The flounce with its ruffle, and the ruffle on the skirt under.

It is not so visible in the picture, but the flounce has my husband's grandmother's embroidered monogram on it.

I surprised myself a bit when I decided to put some extra effort into this petticoat, to make it look nice, not just give the proper shape. Normally I just make the under layers simple and functional, to get on with the layers to be seen. But now, I had some inspiration from fellow costumers, that really inspired me to do something extra with this. It was fun! But now I am wondering if I might perhaps be able to use this as a summer walking skirt, if I make a matching blouse and a belt. What do you think? Would it look too much like underwear?