I want to make a petticoat to go under a dress I have made, poof it out a bit.
You can make petticoats out of tulle, and they look smashing but I haven't got any. Well, I do but its very stiff stuff and will be too poofy for what I want, besides tulle is scratchy. I'm going to go with cotton, a 100% cotton petticoat, the sort I always imagine little Bo peep wearing.
I don't have a pattern for this and I've never made one of these before, I'm just going to wing it and see what happens.
The General Rule for the petticoat I used is this:
Waistband - waist measurement
Tier 1 - Desired length X waist x2
Tier 2 - Desired length X 250cm
Tier 3 - Desired length X 500cm
Method
Working out the desired length of each tier
First I needed to know how long the petticoat needed to be so I measured my dress from waist to hem.
It measured 53cm.
I think usually petticoats have about 3 tires (short ones at least). I divided the skirt length 53 by 3. I wanted the bottom tier to be shorter than the other two.
The lengths I settled on are:
Tier 1 - 20cm
Tier 2 - 20cm
Tier 3 - 13cm
20 + 20 + 13 = 53. Perfect!
* I remembered to add a seem/hem allowance and changed the lengths to 22, 22, 15 cm.
sorry about the photos, it was night, everything kept going out blue.
The elastic I cut at 60cm (my waist)
Tier 1 = 22 X 120cm (my waist X 2)
Tier 2 = 22 X 250cm
Tier 3 = 15 X 500
You only need to cut one strip of fabric to make each tier.
I started by hemming tier 3
Pinned and sewed to tier 2. (sewing right sides together)
Next I sewed up the sides of the skirt, now it forms a circle.
Once I finished the second layer I placed one skirt over the other and sewed the two together along the waist. This is just to keep the layers in place whilst sewing on the elastic.
You might need a friend to help with this bit.
Get them to stretch the elastic to fit the waist of the skirt. Then you quickly pin elastic and fabric together.
The elastic will spring back into place and bunch the fabric.
Pull elastic taut as you sew.
* It is easier to pin the elastic in sections. With pins mark out the front, back and sides on both the elastic and skirt.
(its kind of like marking out the N, S, E, W point on your garment) Match the elastic to fabric and just pull out one section at a time when pinning together.
Sorry I forgot to take pictures of this step.