I have to confess I am cheating a little on my hoop for the India Wilkes dress. I bought a hoop skirt for about $10 on Ebay years ago to go under my Elizabethan dress and I am just going to reuse that one. What I would love is to be able to make a hoop from Truly Victorian but the price of getting the pattern and materials to myself down-under is almost prohibitive and to be honest I do only have until the end of October so timing wise at this point it may be a little ambitious.
The hoop skirt I have is sadly only 3 hoops (recommendation appears to be 5 minimum on all historical costuming groups). Although all 3 hoops can be adjusted on my skirt the largest setting on the largest hoop is about 3.5m. After much discussion with those in the know I was advised that 3 was most likely closer to realistic. This is of benefit as I don't have as much fashion fabric as I would like so shrinking the hoop will give me a much better finish on the skirt.
Only problems remain that a 3 hoop will not hold the bell shape as well as a 5 so there is a rather more conical finish than I would prefer, and that one does not want their hoops showing through their skirt. This calls for a petticoat and so my research began.
Firstly and this took a long time to figure out and I know I would still be muddled if a friend had not politely pointed out my folly, but Americans call Muslin what we in Australia would call Calico (apparently). They also call Muslin Muslin and did use it for petticoats but when they say lightweight it doesn't mean necessarily feather light like out muslin is. If someone in the USA could clarify this that would be great but my understanding now is that our muslin is what you would use to wrap cheese and squeeze out excess liquid but not really sew a garment with. I know I have tried and that shit unravels as soon as you so much as breath on it - overlocked or not!
The good news about this is that a) I don't have to work with "muslin" again and b) the cotton linen blend that I have had 4.5m of in stash for the past 7 or so years will be more than adequate as a lightweight fabric option for my petticoat.
The other recommendation was at least 2 petticoats but given the lack of over skirt material (remembering that I need the petticoats to fit under its final hem) and the Australian heat in this instance I am going to be attempting to hide the hoops in a single petticoat. Not particularly accurate but cross fingers it works well enough for my purposes.
The next thing to do was decide on a style. Flounced would be my first choice as it pretty much can guarantee hiding hoops and gives a lot of volume where I want it most. The downside is that it also takes up excessive amounts of fabric. As in a friend who made a 5 tier flounced skirt used 11m of taffeta. Sure it looks amazing, but that is a tone of fabric that I don't have and don't want to buy. I am trying at least to use something from stash in every costume I make.
I also looked at the free to download TV pattern that makes a petticoat with an 8yd single flounce, but it appeared that I could not work my fabric enough to get the yardage where I needed it. It looked like I was going to need to do a single tube and MAYBE one flounce around the bottom, though that worried me because it would add bulk at the waist (something I want to avoid) and it may not give the added oomph at the top of the hoops I am hoping for.
I was at a loss researching and hunting when I came across my possible solution, in any case it is the one I chose to attempt. A three tiered petticoat with increasing volume in two places. My basic pattern will start with a trapezium 1.5m at the waist to minimize the bulk and 2m at the hem and sit about 25cm long. To that I will gather another piece 35-45cm long and hopefully around 4m top and bottom. To that a final tier of up to 8m at the hem and 45cm in length.
I am still working on the math for the final skirt length. I have however thought that the 35 then 45 would give a nice aesthetic, but the 45 would mean that I could just make one long 45cm run and use the gather foot and let it add what it will.
I won't get to start this till next week I am sure, especially since I still need to complete the pleated trim on my Victorian dress but I will be sure to keep you updated once it is done
caio for now
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