How to Hand Sew an 18th Century Petticoat #piecingisperiod

Hello, I'm Bella Mae. Welcome to this channel and we are finally on to a part of the project that is going to be visible. I'm working on an 18th century project or I did back in April and now I'm finally coming out with the videos. So far we've looked at the chemise, under petticoat, false rump, and the stays. So now we're on to the petticoat. Not the under petticoat, just the petticoat that's going to be partly visible with an overdress. After over roughly 60 hours of work into this project, we're finally moving on to something visible. So this petticoat was a bit of a hectic part of the whole project because of a whole fabric situation. So I purchased fabric expecting it to just be for the outer dress, but then when I was looking at some other patterns, I thought that based on my calculations, I had actually bought enough fabric for both the petticoat and the outer dress. And even though I didn't like that look as much with the dress and petticoat matching, I thought, well, if I accidentally bought enough fabric for both, I'm going to use both. I should have bought fabric for the petticoat as well, but I thought I had enough so I didn't. And so I ended up having to do this whole scrounging thing, which we'll talk about later, but I think it's a fun aspect to this project because it is very pieced together, this petticoat, and you do see that in historical gowns as there's a phrase that goes around is piecing is period. So there you have it, a part of this project that ended up being probably historically accurate just because it was something that I had to deal with in this day and age of having fabric scarcity as far as I didn't want to go out and buy more and I don't have any fabric stores in the area that carry good quality fabrics that could be used for a project like this. Anyway, we'll talk about that more later, but we're finally going to get into the petticoat making. Two or so days ago, I had a bit of a fiasco with my fabric and I somehow mismeasured my fabric and what I needed for the petticoat and dress like three times. I triple checked it and it seemed to work, but before I cut everything out, I decided to measure it out of my fabric. So I measured out the lengths that I would need for the skirt and then the petticoat and then there was enough room to fit the bodice in too. So I was like, this will be great. This solves my problem. So I first cut out the skirt of the dress and once I got that, I realized there was only about two yards left and I needed a little less than a yard for the bodice. So there was no way I could make a petticoat out of that. So somehow I completely mismeasured and I did not have enough. So my only saving aspect of this was that I had found a silk in my stash that was the perfect color to match the floral fabric. It was just perfect, but I only had a yard and like 12 inches or so. And so I started theorizing with some ideas of doing some like patchwork on the back with a different fabric that would be hidden by the dress. But then it's not just, the petticoat isn't just seen in the front because of the way that I'm pulling up the skirts of the dress. And so it has to be the whole hem that's the right color. And so I kind of dismissed that thinking there's no way I could make it work, but then everything happened and I was like, well, I have to try to make it work. So I pulled some other silk out that is very light compared in color. And so I cut out pieces piecemeal back together because those were scrap pieces, cut out the pieces of the petticoat with a ton of different pieces. And then I got all the extra fabric that's not the right color sewn up. The whole time I was like, I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like this. So I had an idea to throw that silk in a dye bath because I have some red dye that can maybe turn this light pink into a better matching color. And wouldn't it be so obvious if the skirts like moved around and you saw the very obviously different color silk underneath. And so I threw it in dye bath. I thought it would work. I thought my little tester piece I did in the dye made it the perfect color, but turns out it was just the silk getting wet that turned it darker and made it the perfect matching color. And so that was a mistake I made. I didn't fully execute the dye sample. So I threw the whole thing in, not the good silk. It came out a color that now clashed, completely clashed with my petticoat. So I knew I couldn't use that fabric anymore. I could go back to the original undyed color because I have more scraps of that, but I really wasn't happy with that idea. And so I scrounged my collection again and then actually found a tote of my sister's that had some random pieces of fabric and stuff that she used to do sewing projects with. She's married. She doesn't care about the tote of fabric anymore. And I happened to find in this tote, which I almost didn't look in because I was like, do I? It's just a little like tote, like there's not going to be enough yardage to do anything in here. But I was wrong. There was the perfect shade of cotton fabric that had enough yardage in it to make up the rest of my petticoat. And it's really like, it's the perfect, perfect combination for this petticoat. It's close enough color that if the skirt moved around, it wouldn't be such an obvious, oh, this petticoat is pieced with a different fabric to make it look full of silk. So there you have it. I finally found a solution and I was able to make up a petticoat and I'm quite proud of what it turned out to be. Today's sponsor is Skillshare. Skillshare is a platform dedicated to learning, but it's not only that it's a community, a community of fellow members who all want to find inspiration and pursue their creative interests. Skillshare has classes on a wide variety of topics from illustration to graphic design, to photography, to videography, and so much more. There are so many different areas that I've had to grow in over the years in running my business. It's so nice to know that there is a dedicated space that I can go and find information and classes on such a wide variety of topics, whether it's to hone an existing skill or learn a completely new one. Such as there's one class I'm looking at that's called Pinterest Marketing, the how and why for creative entrepreneurs by Peggy Dean. So I've been going down the rabbit hole of trying to find different ways to expand my business. And I know Pinterest is one of those areas, but I don't know much about it except for pinning pins. So I'm looking forward to watching her class and seeing different ways that I can expand in that area. So do you want to unlock your creativity and learn something new? Skillshare is giving a one month free trial when you use the link in my description. The first thousand people to click that link in the description will get a one month free trial. Thanks again to Skillshare for sponsoring today's video. Once the fabric problem was solved, it was off to piecing together all the parts with a mantua maker seam. But leaving two of the side seams partly open at the top to create the two side closures of a standard 18th century petticoat. These opened edges were then rolled hemmed. Here I am placing some silk and cotton pieces together. Honestly, I don't think I could have found a better match. It's mainly just the sheen of the silk versus the doll of the cotton that distinguishes them. I was so happy that I found it. So this is the mantua maker's seam, which I've explained in earlier videos, but here's a quick explanation. One edge of the seam is just beyond the other, and that extra bit is folded over that other raw edge. This is basted in place, then this whole edge of both fabrics is folded again and is hem stitched in place going through all the layers. When opened up, there are no visible stitches from the outside, and the inside is neat and tidy because the raw edges are all tucked away in that folded edge. Because of all the piecing that I did, there were a lot of seams to sew, but the final result of these seams is so satisfying. I just love how neat and tidy these mantua maker seams are. For this bottom edge, I did a quick trim with a pinking blade on a rotary cutter to eliminate having to hem it. And then we're off to creating the ruffle for the bottom. I wanted to create some fun pinked edges to this ruffle, so I marked out some measurements to get some fun zigzag edges. First is a marking an inch from the edge, which is going to be a stopping line for all the Vs, and then one inch spaced markings on the raw edge, then near the stopping line it's more one inch spaced markings, but a half inch offset from the other ones. Now it's just a matter of using the pinking rotary cutter between the marks one way and then the other. Then at the top edge of the ruffle, I did the same thing, but this time only a half inch deep zigzags. I found this part to be such a fun addition to this project. The pinking is not perfect, and sometimes my blade went a little bit too far into the fabric, and so it's a little wonky, but overall I was so happy with it. Now comes the time to attach the ruffle to the skirt. So since my ruffle is a bit stingy with its ruffleness because of my fabric shortage stuff, there's just not a lot of extra width from the ruffle to the petticoat edge, so I needed to be careful of how much I pleated it up. So I did a lot of measuring and got the half, quarter, eighths, and sixteenths matched up between the two pieces, so that I could pleat up each small section evenly. Now it's time to sew it in place. The closest matching thread I had was a silk thread in red. Even though it was close, it still had contrast compared to the fabric, so I made my stitches as even as possible with a spaced backstitch. Overall, I think it added a little bit of a decorative touch, which was nice. Time to pleat up the waist. The front has a large box pleat, and then pleats going off in both direction all the way to the back. In order to create an even hemline, even with the false rump, the waistband will be attached in a curvy type line. We'll see this later, but for now I've got to make sure the pleats are pleated all the way to where the waistband might end up being attached. Then it's some quick basting to keep all the pleats in place for the next step. After placing it on the dress form with the false rump, I'm roughly pinning the placement of the waist tape, and then getting those two tapes tied together at where they're going to tie. Now I can go about adjusting the petticoat edge to create an even hem going over the false rump and ending all at the same hem length. Once it was even, I secured the waist tape to the petticoat, took it off, and it's time to attach it. The bottom edge is whip stitched in place, making sure all the layers of the pleats are getting caught in those stitches. Now the whole waist tape, which is a one inch linen tape, is turned to the back, creating a folded top edge of this waistband. The bottom edge, which was just sewn, is now the top kind of inside of the waistband. Then the second loose edge is now sewn in place, this time making sure to just barely catch all the layers without making obvious stitches on the back side, since that's the right side of the petticoat. Also you'll want to keep this turn in mind when doing the previous step of getting an even hem, if you're also doing length at that point, which you should be. This turn of the waistband will then make it shorter, so just beware of that when you're doing that step. Once that's in place, the basting of the pleats gets removed and it's a finished petticoat. The extra pleated edges in the inside don't get trimmed away, it stays and helps add extra volume. There you have it, my piecing is period petticoat that is part cotton, part silk, and I think it turned out so fun. It's not perfect, but it's the perfect project to showcase that piecing is period. And also in total, this petticoat took 14 and a half hours to completely hand sew, and I think it's because of all the piecing that I had to do, and also the fact that my main silk fabric was so thick, it was really hard to get the needle through. So overall, I think both of those combined definitely added a lot of time to it, but anyway, 14 and a half hours, that's what it took. Next video, we're finally on to the outer dress, and we'll go to that picnic that I'm making this project for, finally, after all these videos and months of putting out videos. But the interesting part about this is all of this happened in like a week and a half to two, so it was a lot. It was very quick, and then these videos that I'm coming out with are like trickling through the project, but we're getting there. We're getting there. As always, a huge thank you to my patrons, YouTube members, and Instagram subscribers. Gosh, that's a lot of different platforms, but thank you all of you on your different platforms for supporting this journey, and just thanks for sticking with me through this very slow time, and be sure to check back next week for the dress video, and check out the other videos that already came out. Oh, and also, um, maybe subscribe if you haven't already. I feel like I've never done that in my videos, but hey, if you want to subscribe, you can subscribe!