The aNGrY Dress Part 1 - The Petticoat

I've been asked to be the Maid of Honor (Matron?) at my girlfriend's wedding on January 30th. She was hesitant to ask, because that meant I'd have to wear a dress... and she didn't know if I'd be willing to do that or not... hahah. She did give me several concessions that made it worth my while to accept - it could be any dress I want, it had to be black (whoot) and I could make it myself if I wanted. Which of course, I wanted.

I'd mocked up the dress itself in muslin, but before I could do any further work on the dress design, I had to get the petticoat done. It turned out to be an easy enough task, except for having to wrangle around 10 yards of tulle and lace. I have waaay more appreciation for Jinx the tutu queen (MTCoffinz.etsy.com) now that I've wrestled with the tulle ;)

I wanted the tulle to be hidden under the lace. I'm not a big fan of tulle, so I thought the lace might make a nicer front face. I basically made three patterns - a 12.5 X 9 inch rectangle for the top (yoke) tier, a looooonger 20 X 23 inch rectangle for the middle tier, and a smaller 20 X 12 rectangle for the third tier.

I cut two of the first yoke tier pattern on the fold along the 9 inch side, and sewed them together to form a circle, again with the seam on the 9 inch side. I serged the top edge, then folded it under about an inch and a half. I sewed it around the edge to form the elastic pocket, and threaded the elastic through.



For the tulle underlayer, I cut 3 of the second tier pattern on the fold on the 23 inch side, and sewed them together. Then cut 6 of the third tier pattern on the fold on the 12 inch side, and sewed them together. I gathered the top of the third tier and sewed it to the second tier. I then pinned it loosely to the yoke so I could test the length...



For the lace top layer, I used the same patterns in the same manner as above, except that I cut a continuous piece from the lace for the full length of each tier, as I did not want a lot of seams showing on the lace. I'd cut out one piece of the pattern, then move the pattern over and keep cutting, until I'd move the pattern 6 times for the second tier, and 12 times for the bottom tier. This took about 10 yards of lace. I used the scalloped selvage on the lace as the bottom hem for the third tier. Might as well use what's already provided :D

I gathered and sewed the lace layer the same way as the tulle, then I gathered both the lace layer and the tulle layer at their top, then sewed both to the yoke bottom. This was a LOT of work to keep straight, as you can see:



So here is the *finished* petticoat. I say *finished* because it turned out to be about 1.5 inches too long for me, so I have to adjust the yoke tier for that. Also, I haven't finished the seam between the yoke tier and the lace/tulle. It's all sewed up, but not serged and topstitched yet, as I think I might want to add another underlayer of black broadcloth to make the petticoat opaque. I haven't decided yet.

It's still pretty damn angry...

The dress is next :D