Finishing up the Double Skirt
Hello stitching & non-stitching friends,
In this post, I'll be going through the final steps putting together Truly Victorian's TV 244 1859 double skirt pattern.
If you haven't read my previous post about my current project, I'm making a late 1850's, early 1860's dress out of yellow cotton lawn, lined with cream broadcloth, and trimmed with black velvet ribbon.
I will be making a bodice with pagoda sleeves to match this skirt, and with the way this quarantine is going, I'll be finished pretty soon!
Just for a reference, this is the bottom flounce of my skirt being hemmed. You can see how sheer the lawn is, which had my quite worried.
I pinned my lining (ivory broadcloth) into a rough approximation of a waistband and put four pins equally distributed around the bottom to match up with the four pins equally spaced around the bottom flounce of my skirt. I matched up each quarter mark pin on my yellow lawn to a quarter mark on the broadcloth. This way, I could gather up each section of the yellow lawn to neatly match up to each corresponding section of the broadcloth and the gathers would be evenly distributed.
I then picked the heck out of these gathers. It was rough, and if you look closely, you may even see my humongous blue gathering threads I messily sewed into the lawn. You'll notice that the seams are visible, since I was working on just the wrong side of the skirt to join the pieces.
You might also notice that yes, I serged my seams. Since I won't be adding a dust ruffle to this skirt, I wanted it to able to go through a modern washer and dryer. If you plan on hand washing your skirts, or using your washer's delicate cycle, regular stitching and seam binding will be perfectly fine.
Here is an overall picture of my sections joined together. I was kind of a dingbat and I didn't hem my lawn section beforehand.
I had originally planned to make an elaborate Greek key in my black velvet ribbon along the borders, but with my limited supply of ribbon and a low likelihood of getting more in the near future, I opted for a simple band stitched approximately 1 5/8" above the hem of the second flounce.
Once I had my upper section finished, I matched up the lining at the waistband and the yellow lawn at the waistband and basted them together. You can see the black basting line in the picture above.
I initially made my waistband out of the yellow lawn, but the pleats weren't evenly distributed, and there was a gap in the skirt where I had put my placket. Also, the lawn warped and stretched over just one night on the mannequin, and I had cut it on the straight grain!
And here she is! As you may have noticed, I swapped the original lawn waistband with one made from the sturdier broadcloth, and I honestly like the small contrast a bit better.
This is a better picture, but with the old waistband. I hid my awful section in the back of the mannequin.
Overall, the pattern was very easy to follow. The instructions weren't very clear about how to attach the waistband, so I ultimately ended up matching raw ends and pleating the skirt onto the waistband with the raw ends together and the waistband on the inside of the skirt. That way, when I folded the waistband over the edges, all raw edges were neatly tucked inside and contained.
I also hadn't bothered to properly proportion out my skirt to waistband ratio (it was 2 AM and I was exhausted) so my pleats were awful. So I had some coffee(s) and redid it the next morning. I am very pleased with how it turned out!
The skirt itself is very light and flowy, probably because I used lawn, but I love it! I think it screams 'summer' and I can't wait to wear it out! I do like that the weight of the velvet ribbon on the upper skirt helps keep the upper skirt from flapping upwards, exposing the lining portion. I don't want to tack the upper lawn onto the lining, since I feel like that would ruin the flowy nature of the skirt.
Until next time,
In this post, I'll be going through the final steps putting together Truly Victorian's TV 244 1859 double skirt pattern.
If you haven't read my previous post about my current project, I'm making a late 1850's, early 1860's dress out of yellow cotton lawn, lined with cream broadcloth, and trimmed with black velvet ribbon.
I will be making a bodice with pagoda sleeves to match this skirt, and with the way this quarantine is going, I'll be finished pretty soon!
Just for a reference, this is the bottom flounce of my skirt being hemmed. You can see how sheer the lawn is, which had my quite worried.
I pinned my lining (ivory broadcloth) into a rough approximation of a waistband and put four pins equally distributed around the bottom to match up with the four pins equally spaced around the bottom flounce of my skirt. I matched up each quarter mark pin on my yellow lawn to a quarter mark on the broadcloth. This way, I could gather up each section of the yellow lawn to neatly match up to each corresponding section of the broadcloth and the gathers would be evenly distributed.
I then picked the heck out of these gathers. It was rough, and if you look closely, you may even see my humongous blue gathering threads I messily sewed into the lawn. You'll notice that the seams are visible, since I was working on just the wrong side of the skirt to join the pieces.
You might also notice that yes, I serged my seams. Since I won't be adding a dust ruffle to this skirt, I wanted it to able to go through a modern washer and dryer. If you plan on hand washing your skirts, or using your washer's delicate cycle, regular stitching and seam binding will be perfectly fine.
Here is an overall picture of my sections joined together. I was kind of a dingbat and I didn't hem my lawn section beforehand.
I had originally planned to make an elaborate Greek key in my black velvet ribbon along the borders, but with my limited supply of ribbon and a low likelihood of getting more in the near future, I opted for a simple band stitched approximately 1 5/8" above the hem of the second flounce.
I initially made my waistband out of the yellow lawn, but the pleats weren't evenly distributed, and there was a gap in the skirt where I had put my placket. Also, the lawn warped and stretched over just one night on the mannequin, and I had cut it on the straight grain!
And here she is! As you may have noticed, I swapped the original lawn waistband with one made from the sturdier broadcloth, and I honestly like the small contrast a bit better.
This is a better picture, but with the old waistband. I hid my awful section in the back of the mannequin.
Overall, the pattern was very easy to follow. The instructions weren't very clear about how to attach the waistband, so I ultimately ended up matching raw ends and pleating the skirt onto the waistband with the raw ends together and the waistband on the inside of the skirt. That way, when I folded the waistband over the edges, all raw edges were neatly tucked inside and contained.
The skirt itself is very light and flowy, probably because I used lawn, but I love it! I think it screams 'summer' and I can't wait to wear it out! I do like that the weight of the velvet ribbon on the upper skirt helps keep the upper skirt from flapping upwards, exposing the lining portion. I don't want to tack the upper lawn onto the lining, since I feel like that would ruin the flowy nature of the skirt.
Until next time,
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