V68: Operations Petticoat: Two Finished 18th Century Petties

I finally finished two Georgian petticoats that seem to have taken me forever to do.

Petticoats are supposed to be easy, right?

Celadon green silk petticoat with pinked ruffle, sheer embroidered apron, silk stockings, and Kensington red leather shoes with buckles

It’s the ruffles that take the longest.  There are a number of ways to do ruffles.  My favorite – the one that makes me less homicidal – is cord-gathering.  This involves sewing a channel somewhere into the ruffle yardage, and since I wanted a decorative, pinked top and bottom edge to the ruffle on this celadon green silk petti, I sewed narrow strips of muslin to the backside of the ruffle, to form the channel.  I didn’t bother to hem these piece of cotton, as they won’t show, and this petticoat will never be put through rigorous wash cycles.

The top and bottom edge of the ruffle are pinked with scalloped shears – the top is straight, but the bottom is vandyked.  Makes for a nice effect.  You can also see the muslin channel strips.

Here’s how it looks all gathered up.  I also ran the steam iron over this lightly, to press the gathers down a bit – they’re quite unruly when first gathered, and I wanted that “been flat in a trunk for 300 years look” lol.

If you don’t need a decorative top edge, you can just fold the top of the ruffle yardage over and make that your channel, like on The Matelesse Petticoat of Suck.

A deep ruffle with the cord gathering at the very top edge – makes for a harder look.

After everything, I actually quite like how the Petticoat of Suck came out, but I’ve concluded that it’s not my style, though I would like to try a matelesse petticoat again, san rufflage.

Both petticoats are shown with the red Kensingtons, so you can finally see how they look on on the foot.  Don’t forget that Kensingtons are our new 18th century latchet shoe, come in black and red, and are on pre-order right now for $99 ($120) .  Fleur and Dauphine shoe buckles are also on sale for $35 ($40).