Pretty in Peach Petticoat

So a long time back I promised some pictures and have not yet posted them, my bad. Here are some pics of the petticoat I finished a few weeks ago. It is to go under my Butterick dress (still at a standstill) and is made from Simplicity 5006.

The peachy side...

The tiers are tulle in champagne and peach colours (a very subtle difference in shades, somehow adds luminence) and the yoke is made from the same fabrics as the dress, a peach crepe and apricot crepe-back satin, and is reversible in wearing (an adjustment to the pattern). I can't recall why I decided to use the crepe face of the satin, in hindsight I should have used the satin side for a lower friction surface.   It's not yet hemmed because I want to cut it to the right length for the dress.

In reverse ... apricot

 As you can see, I serged the seams of the tulle, I really wanted a quick and easy method, and I don't mind the lines, it is an undergarment after all!  It is supposed to be 4 panels per tier but I doubled up the fabric to cut it as 2 per tier, again to save effort.  Which I'm glad I did as the gathering was a mega pain. At around 8 yards of fabric gathering threads were just going to snap and cause tears, it couldn't be ruffled on the machine, more misery, and so I took my trusty cutting board, a box of 200 large-head pins and sat dividing the tulle lengths, folding and pinning which resulted in hundreds of neat, uniform, miniscule pleats which were very satisfying to the eye!

I finished off the seam between the peach tulle and crepe with some lovely handstitched trim I had in stash, haven't decided what to use on the other side, maybe some pale lace?

The waist band is elasticated with 28mm wide elastic and I stitched in the ditch at the side seams to help prevent it flipping and twisting in the channel.  TBH, I really dislike the elasticated waistband and if I use this pattern again I will switch it for a flat waistband which will look much smoother under a dress.  I may yet just undo the top of this one, dart and reband it, lets see how much it annoys me! 

Another thing I noticed when I tried on the finished garment was that the seam between yoke and tulle sits right across my "seat", a tad uncomfortable, especially when sitting!  Answer for this skirt is a cami-slip, which I intended to wear under the dress anyway. In future - extend yoke and add lining layer to petticoat. That said, I now have quite a choice of vintage petticoats patterns to try out, I have lemon tulle at the ready!

Quick update

Petticoat is finished (bar needingg a bit of pretty ribbon to finish off the yoke). Will take pictures when I have daylight! I am quite pleased with it but I won't feel entirely happy until I've put it under its destined dress and seen that it does its job!

I have to sew the destined dress still, but my mojo is back and running so hope to bring more exciting updates and pics soon! :-)

What I found...

A thumbscrew YAY

A video tape of my dad taxiing a Lancashire bomber YAY

A little bit of my sewing mojo... I've had a depressing drought of not being able to face a pattern piece, fabric scissors or sewing machine, I've been busy with family stuff and I've been doing a costume design for Christmas panto which seems to have sated all my creative needs, but is it common to lose one's sewing mojo? 

Hopefully I will start to enjoy sewing again, and with that will come updates on the petticoat (Simplicity 5006), the Butterick 9265  dress and a Vogue inspired vintage repro. YAY!

Update on the Butterick 9265 Dress

 Ok, so two days before the wedding deadline, I brought out from my wardrobe a lovely homemade vintage 70s empire line dress in a cream and decided it needed an airing and the wedding would be perfect.  Last time I had worn was a year and a week before for a garden party.  I was around 35 weeks pregnant and had to deeply breath in to get the back zip done up but I was determined to wear it! It flowed over the bump beautifully anyway.

The following weekend, at another wedding I wore a modern 40s/50s look dress in a black lined cotton with purple, blue and white flowers.  I wouldn't normally wear black to a wedding but this dress just seemed to be right so I teamed it with purple tights and black shoes. When I got to the wedding I discovered it was themed with the same shade of purple! I shall add photos this week.

Any way, what has this got to do with the Butterick dress?  Well I supposed to be wearing it to the first wedding and, since I changed my mind, I didn't get on with finishing it.  To be honest I've made so many changes I've lost my impetus somewhat but I must must finish it.  My new deadline is 22nd August for Mango's first birthday!



The most adjusted bit is the bodice, here is the pattern view bodice:

Could I get it to look pretty like that?! The neckline came up too high and there just felt like there was too much fabric across my bust.




So I ended up reducing it pretty much to a deep V surplice although with enough fabric to preserve modesty! The tuck darts look pretty cute in the muslin too.

 

But I was still contemplating converting them to gathers to make like easier, I'd seen it on a few other patterns of the time and more modern.  These were my alternative inspiration pics for the surplice:

 

Then when I was fitting my lining before I cut out the outer dress layers I stumbled across a new alternative.  I tried on the lining inside to get a matt finish to  mimic the dress crepe and the neck flopped back into a satiny rever collar, "oooh pretty" I thought!  So here it is in its new design in lining and then with the actual crepe outer dress layer in place.  You can see I was toying with doing the midriff in the satin side too but decided it was overload.  The revers are interfaced now to give them structure and support as is the midriff because I wanted a super smooth stomach line to mimic the corsetted look.

  

It all needs sewing together now, its so close, just got to find my sewing mojo and get on with it.  The matching petticoat is also in mid-production, I wanted to try gathering the layers with my ruffling foot but that's proving to require so much thought and input it would probably be quicker to hand gather!  Since I intend to make more petticoats, I think its worth taking the time now to learn how to do the machine way and make the process quicker in future. That's the logic anyway haha.