Forget Me Knot - Dress - Part III

Petticoat Power

Behold the effects of a petticoats on the dress:

No petticoats:

With petticoat ruffle attached to lining:

With petticoat ruffle attached to lining and separate petticoat:

I just love the effect of petticoats. Petticoats can take a very pretty dress and make it something special.

To achieve such a look, I started by adding a net ruffle to the lining of the skirt. Here's what it looked like in progress:

That's quite a jumble of fabric and netting! There are 576" or 16 yards worth of netting 11" wide attached to that lining. To manage such a large amount of fabric, I divide the skirt and the ruffle into quadrants and work on in it one section at a time, pinning and stitching down only one section and then moving on to the next.

I first cut all the netting into 11" wide strips. The best way to do that is to use a rotary cutter and mat. It makes very quick work of cutting the netting. Why so wide? You'll see in a minute, but it was sort of an experiment. (Great time for an experiment, huh? Especially on an almost finished dress for competition!) After cutting and seaming all the strips together, it was gathered down the center.

The skirt was then marked for the ruffle placement. My finished ruffle is 5 1/2" wide, so I marked a line 5 1/2" from the hem as my stitching line:

The whole ruffle was divided up and then stitched to the skirt in sections down the center of the ruffle. The section below is stitched but the basting threads haven't been removed.

Now I know that ruffle looks very unusual with half of it above the stitching line and half below the stitching line, but there is a good reason. I actually wanted to attached two ruffles, but only have to gather and stitch the ruffle once. When the ruffle is folded down at the stitching line, you get a double ruffle:


Much improved! Now, if I get the zippers I ordered in the mail, and one actually is a close match, I'll be putting in the new zipper and finishing the dress this weekend. I did actually get the vest finished to my satisfaction, but there is nothing on the outside that has changed. If all goes well, and I get the accessories completed, there should be a photo shoot and final post sometime next week!

Parting Shot: Coat and trousers, 1970. This is a great pattern, and I'd actually consider making the coat for myself. The pattern envelope art is really great. There's a smart red version, a blue version, a tan version (notice the long striped scarf on the model with the tan one.) Then there's the snake skin print version with the silvery white over the knee boots in the center paired with a fuchsia turtleneck!