1830s behind the scenes

I made a corded petticoat to go with my 1830s dress. The petticoat is made from 3 widths of fabric giving it a 3metre circumference. This is possibly more than it needs to be; it does rather fold in on itself.

I cut each piece a lot longer than I wanted the skirt to be and folded the excess under to hold the cording. I sewed the cords around in a spiral. The first cord I used was my trusty, neverending roll of string that I usually use for piping. Unfortunately it turned out to be not stiff enough to hold out a skirt and because it was thin it needed many, many rows that were tedious to do. I decided to get proper piping cord (and made the poor girl at Lincraft measure out 30 metres of it). I worked out the arrangement of rows based on the length of cord. These rows went in much faster and hold the skirt out very nicely.

I used a length of petersham ribbon for the waistband and it closes with two sets of tapes.

The 1830s dress is also worn with my late regency long stays. I have adapted them since last Jafa with hip gussets and a busk. The stays are much more comfortable now.

I curled my fringe with a new method of curling – using straws. You wrap your hair around the straw, fold the straw over and use a bobby pin to hold both ends of the straw together. It worked marvellously. The straw just slides out so the ringlet is not disturbed. I also used a styling mousse when setting the curl, another thing I discovered recently.