Make Do & Mend

It is time to think about challenge #1 for this years Historical Sew Fortnightly.
The first challenge is due on 15th this month and says to Make, do & Mend.
I only own 1 really old piece of fashion (a very, very old fur muff), which is in no need of mending or anything alike. All my self made garments are somewhat new, so no mending here as well...
BUT
I have made a huge crinoline some month back and I am not quite satisfied with the TV free petticoat pattern I used for the petticoat, so why not change this one until I am happy with it?

Challenge #1 Make, Do & Mend

 This is the hoop skirt. I used a 1864 pattern in "Corsets & Crinolines" and enlarged it to a bigger circumference. I never measure the finished hem-line, but I guess it is close to 5 metres...

Since the finished skirt ended up a bit short, I added a ruffle to the hem later.
Please excuse the mess in my sewing room...

Here we have the petticoat made from the free TrulyVictorian pattern. I used the same fabric as for the crinoline and used 15 metres for both.

What I absolutely don't like here is, that one can see where the last hoop is. The ruffle helps here, but the fabric is somewhat too delicate to cover the hoops to my satisfaction.


So two weeks ago I started to undo the petticoat entirely and drape a gored skirt from the scraps on my dress form.

Since the petticoat leftovers were quite narrow I had some difficulties to cover all of my crinoline, but I wasn't going for perfection in this step and added gussets here and there. The Hem ended up to be a rolled one I made using my serger. For the waistband I used elastic. It is not accurate, but soo comfortable to wear!

To attach the ruffle to the crinoline I used hooks and made tiny buttonholes, but they keep slipping out. Any opinions on how to keep it flexible but fixed to the skirt???

For the new petticoat I plan to make lots of ruffles! This way I can add volume to the skirt and no hoop can ever show through...

This mess are the ruffles I prepared from the former petticoat ruffle. 4 rows instead of 1. I hope it will be enough to cover the crinoline from top to bottom. I used the serger to make the ruffles (ruffling and hemming) and it went absolutely neat and fast.

The netting is from another hoop skirt I teared apart. It was an awful ebay hoop skirt I actually never used, because the shape was a. boring and b. somewhat angular. Only three hoops and all of them extremely visible. We'll see, how the netting will fill up my new petticoat.





I didn't make many progress pictures, because I was very eager to finish it today.
This is what I ended up with:
My new Whipped Cream Petticoat :-)

Front view                                                                                   Back view

 

And finally the test with a piece of fabric, because I don't have a skirt to go over the crinoline yet.

Nothing showing!

Maybe I am going to use that fabric for challenge #3 Pink...

Now the only thing left do do is readjusting the hoops on the center back seam. As soon as I am done with those I will have finished my first challenge this year!