Saturday, January 31, 2015

1830's corded petticoat - L - HSF Challenge #1

Did my my first HSF/HSM challenge!  I've been lurking forever.  It seems the challenges line up maybe sorta good for me this year.  We shall see how I do.  Anyhow, here it is, 1830's corded petticoat.
No pattern.  100" wide which is likely wider than it needs to be, but I'm pretty tall so I want to consider proportions.  I finally used cotton organdy which I now love more than anything. I really waffled about the cording.  I decided to use cotton cord (3mm clothesline from the hardware store), and enclose it in a facing.  True to every warning I read, the layers slip while sewing.  I finally resigned myself to having the facing a bit twisted and some bunching between layers.  I looked at a lot of pictures and read about a lot of how many cords and how high to cord.  I thought I could get away with about 30 rows, but ended up with 45.  This was determined by weight, how it looked as I worked, and by the overwhelming tedium of sewing interminable circles.  Just to make myself believe that there was a lot of thoughtfulness in this, I made each section 3 rows less than the section below.  My sections are (bottoms up) 15, 12, 9, 6, 3.  I have every intention of making a regular organdy petticoat to wear over this.  Just not right now.

During pinning and marking my cat would climb inside, and since he objected to being moved, there are already some little holes in it.  Just like a real antique!

Cotton organdy is very light and crisp.  If it gets a little wobbly, a quick iron sorts it right out.  Now I want to make all the pretty Gibson girl dresses.  Don't hold your breath.

Sewing cording in circles really makes me stabby, but if that wasn't enough, with just 5 rows to go, I was stricken by food poisoning/stomach virus that threatened to turn me inside out.  I've spent the last few days living on orange Gatorade and white rice.  No coffee.  So it's really a surprise that no family members were killed in the making of this petticoat.

Next up, I need to finish the WW1/Outlander mashup and put that to bed (for now).  And repair the Attack on Titan cosplay because we are going, en masse to 'Escape the Walled City'.  After I do all the laundry.

4 comments:

  1. Also fallen on the illness front, and goggle eyed over the Titan event. Photos are too tiny; this will need more explanation for me from you (pretty please?). Hope you had a wonderful, puzzling time. Escape!

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    1. We had a blast at the puzzle game. Sadly we were eaten, but we were soooooo close to solving the last puzzle! Check out
      http://realescapegame.com/sp/sf/ Escape the Walled City on FB. My daughter got tickets for the family as a Christmas gift

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  2. Saw this just now. http://www.dorkly.com/post/69837/attack-on-titan-fan-art

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    1. There's some great ones! Just sent it to my 'Annie'.

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