Bluebird of Happiness - Dress - Part VII

Skirt Lining with Petticoat

On my list of things left to do for the dress is to make the skirt lining with attached petticoat ruffle. The lining part isn't hard, that is made the same as the skirt for the dress. The petticoat ruffle can be a little difficult to manage, but since I've made many of these sort of lining over the years for art garments and for my daughter, I've developed a system that works for me.

First, I use a rotary cutter and mat to cut all the pieces of petticoat netting. This is much more accurate and quicker than scissors since I am cutting rectangles. I cut strips the width of the fabric by twice the width of the finished ruffle. The strips for this dress are 12"/30cm wide. I always cut 8 sections, two for each quadrant of the skirt. Depending on the width of the netting, this is usually around 400"/10m or so of netting to handle. You can see how long this piece is, as it stretches out into the next room in the photo below:

The netting sections must be seamed together. I prefer to lap the seams and stitch two lines of stitching rather than a regular seam or a french seam. It is much quicker and netting does not fray, anyway. I overlap the two pieces by 1/2"/1cm and then stitch 1/8"/2mm from each cut edge.

The entire thing then needs to be gathered. To start this process, I fold the netting in half to the finished width and press the crease. I then open the netting back out and this crease is where I will stitch the gathering stitches. There is no 6"/15cm seam guide on my machine, so this is the best way I've come up with to do this. I also try to use up all my odd colored bobbins, too, left from other projects long since finished.

Once the netting is gathered, the lining skirt must be marked for the stitching. With a wash away making pen, I mark a line 6"/15cm from the hem of the lining. This is the stitching line and where I will pin the line of gathering stitches.

The sections are pinned on in quadrants, two sections at a time. I often will pin and stitch only one or two quadrants at a time. This breaks a very awkward task into much smaller and doable segments.
Once all the sections are stitched and all the basting threads removed, the netting is folded in half again, creating a double ruffle . This method also produces a smoother transition between the netting and lining, with no ruffle header to show through on the outside.

Now to insert the skirt lining into the dress!

Parting Shot: Turning the Heel. I've turned the heel on my sock and am now working on the instep. After this section is done, all I have left is the toe. And the other sock.