The Airship Project: V's Petticoat

I've three projects all proceeding at the same time. If I were ADD, this would probably be heaven. But I'm not, and it's a little stressful wondering if they'll all get done in time.

I had a couple of hours last night so I started working on the petticoats for "Mrs. V", the wealthy patron of our airship. This is one of those projects where I said from the beginning that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. /footstamp. The other one was the Star Wars Imperial Officer. Note that the Enchantress project (of which I did not utter those famous words) is the one that's almost done.  Anyway, back to V...

I'm not au fait with Victorian costuming, so this project is pretty much being done from Truly Victorian patterns, although some modifications are being made because I'm tall. (As in, I had to add 6" to the petticoats here!) This one is pattern TV121.

Here's the pile of fabric pieces. Yes, there's a big stack of netting pieces underneath.




Yes, those are my monkey slippers in the background. :)











The body of the petticoat went together pretty quickly. If I could figure out how to install an ironing board in my little well o' sewing, it would have been much quicker! I opted to do the ruffle around the bottom of the petticoat, so I had to sew together and hem four large strips of fabric before I could start ruffling / gathering. Here's where I make a recommendation:

This is a godsend. This is a rolled hem foot which I'd gotten for my machine lo, these many years. It pretty much sucks up the fabric, rolls it and stitches it all in one go. No fold, pin, fold, pin, sew. Takes a bit to get used to it (ie, how much fabric you need to feed into it to keep the hem consistent), but once you do .....

... it did hems on both sides of two long strips of fabric in about 20 minutes (it got quicker as I got more practiced). You can see a big learner's bobble down towards the bottom of the stack there - but I figured it's a ruffle, right? And it's at the bottom of the petticoat, right?


Right.



Then it was time to get some sleep, so more on this project later. Happy sewing!