Sunday, May 20, 2012

May Regency Project: Petticoat. Part 3. The Bodice.


We left off with the skirt sewn into a tube, the hem and tucks sewn, and the front placket made. After that I pleated the waist edge of the skirt to fit my underbust measurement, leaving the center few inches of the skirt flat. The pleats are small 1/2" pleats, like the original petticoat. 

And after that, with my petticoat skirts all nicely starched and laid out nicely over my ironing board, our male cat came in and sprayed a big spot on the skirt. So I had to wash it immediately and it became all winkled. So I will have to starch and iron it again, alas. Sigh.

I cut two layers for the bodice out of the white linen. Here you can see the pieces sewn together:

Each layer was sewn up separately. To finish the seam allowances, I folded them under and slip stitched them to the bodice:

Here is one layer of bodice with the seam allowances finished and the neckline seam allowance pressed down. I did the same thing with the other bodice layer:

I then matched the inner bodice layer to the outer bodice layer, wrong sides together. I pinned the layer together along the neckline and stitched through all layers to secure: (yeah, you can see my built in sewing table here - my belly is getting obnoxiously in-the-way! 12 weeks to go!)

After stitching the neckline and front opening, I pressed and pinned the seam allowances in the same manner around the armscyes. I sewed on the skirts at the waistline as well. Here is the bodice so far, with the skirts on and the armscyes still pinned (hopefully I'll get time to finish the petticoat this afternoon - it's so close to being done!):

Love,
Sarah

1 comment:

Thank you for your lovely thoughts!