Sewing and hemming gored skirts is a skill needed for almost all periods of western fashion since the late 1400s. This demo shows how to make a gored skirt with a simple side-seam pocket, mounted on a waistband. We’re going to gather the fullness of this skirt to the back, making it very suitable as an underskirt to be worn over a support skirt (hoops or farthingale).
4 CommentsArchives: Demos
The Spanish Farthingale is a stiffened underskirt that gives Tudor and early Elizabethan skirts their characteristic conical shape. You can make a very passable one with a full length gored skirt pattern (either a commercial A-line skirt pattern, or one you draft yourself), a lot of ribbon or bias tape, and boning.
7 Comments
A lot of people seem to really like circle skirts. They look all cute and romantic on tiny elf-looking girls, and multi-circle skirts are popular with some dance troups. To me, for historical work, they always scream “sock hop!” and I avoid them even though circular hems are demonstrably correct for sixteenth century surcoats and capes. (They also eat fabric like you wouldn’t believe.) This is about the second easiest skirt pattern I can think of, though, and it’s a good trick to know.
Leave a Comment
The drawstring skirt is about the easiest thing in the world to make, so it’s a great starting point for building up your “sewing without a pattern” confidence. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the least flattering skirts to wear. It will pass for an underskirt, and it’s good if you’re in a hurry or sewing for children. (You might, however, have to explain the idea of drawstrings to the child repeatedly, as I found out during Oliver! – children have grown up in some sort of “all elastic, all the time” universe and are confounded by clothing that needs periodic adjustments. “My skirt fit yesterday and today it falls off.” “Did you tie the drawstring?” “Yes.” “Tight?” “Yes!” “Really?” “Um….”)
Leave a Comment
Sewing a chemise can be as simple, or as difficult, as you want it to be. This is version has a slightly more advanced finish on the neck than the simple chemise with drawstrings, but it’s got an easier sleeve. You will need your Simple Chemise Pattern. This method produces one of my favorite festive peasant chemises, but with a little decoration and nicer fabric, it also produces a neckline that’s a good fill for any square necked bodice.
Leave a Comment
Sewing a chemise can be as simple, or as difficult, as you want it to be. This is one of the simplest versions. Combined with your Simple Chemise Pattern, these sewing directions are all you need to produce a chemise. Well, I mean, you’ll need some fabric, too, and some thread and a sewing machine would be awfully handy, but you get the idea. Shall we?
7 CommentsThis is a very simple chemise pattern. It won’t win you any points for historical authenticity, but it’s a really great, “feel good” sort of introduction to pattern drafting. Historically, linen items (including chemises and smocks) were made by home seamstresses because of their relatively simple cut and construction. To draft a simple chemise, you really only need to be able to sort out a couple of rectangles.
3 Comments
I realize that instructions are far more helpful when you can print them out and put them on the worktable while you’re using them. I also realize that pages upon pages of full color photos do not a happy printer make. I’ve made a not-so-chatty (yes, I actually can edit) PDF version of the Basic Conical Draft directions, redone with black&white line art.
2 Comments
Now that I’ve got all the photography done, it’s time to pick up where we left off in The Basic Conical Torso Block (Part 1). We’re completing a basic torso block that we can use for the simplified, conical torsos popular in Renaissance, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Pompadour, Colonial, and all other eras between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth centuries. (She says, throwing as many keywords into one sentence as humanly possible.) One block, three hundred years of fashion – how can you lose?
12 CommentsFor several hundred years, beginning where the High Middle Ages met the Renaissance and continuing through the eve of the French Revolution, fashion treated the female torso as something of an inconvenience. The breasts were flattened, first by bands of wool or linen, later by corsetry and boned bodices. The sides of the body were straightened and the tum controlled. The torso became a conic shape. In some decades, like the 1590s, 1690s, and 1780s, it’s a very long cone. In others, like the 1640s, it’s a very short cone that disappears into skirts below the bust. During these times, a very basic conical torso block can be used as a basis creating custom patterns.