Making the Petticoat - Skirt

When making the next layer I am splitting it into two (very logical!) parts - the skirt, and the bodice/bodies. The skirt is easy enough to do by myself but for the bodice I need an extra pair of hands to help shape the toile.

Kentwell have recently overhauled and updated standards of dress, and now the petticoat needs to have a linen or wool bodice. We used to have a skirt on a band, which is what is described on the Tudor Costume page.

Mine is a woollen skirt and linen bodice. The skirt wool should be fairly lightweight, but for lack of options mine is a little thicker. There is lots of evidence that red was a very popular skirt colour, but mine is the orange wool I dyed - red would have been nice, but I couldn't find any! 

The skirt consists of two panels - one tapered front panel, and a large back one. For the front panel, the top should be the same width as your waist circumference, and the bottom hem 1.5x this measurement. The back panel is a square piece 1.5x the waist at both top and bottom. For the drop, or length, measure from your waist to about a handspan above your foot.

Instead of hemming the bottom, I will add a 'guard', a strip of black wool. This means that when the bottom of the skirts get mucky/scrappy, I can simply replace the guards. 

Also keep in mind that wool will 'drop' and before attaching the bodice you need to hang the skirt for a day or two to let it settle and drop a bit. 

This sounds rather complicated but if you put it on paper it starts to make more sense. I started making my front panel by cutting a square 45"x32"(drop). I then measured 7.5" in each side on one long side - distance between these points being my waist circumference, 31". Going from these points I cut to the bottom corner on the opposite side to make a trapezoid shape. Back panel was easy - I just cut another square 45x32". 

I was going to whipstitch the pieces together next to create a tube, but I read on the 'Stitch in Time' blog that pleating and attaching a skirt to a bodice was far easier when they were both flat. So with this in mind, I've just whipstitched one side.

Next step is to hem the top before pleating to bodice, but I think I will risk leaving it...I could wholeheartedly regret this, but I think the wool will become too thick to pleat with a hem. Also, from the two washes it's pretty tight so I'm fairly confident it will survive! Time will tell...!