underskirt... check!

This week, I decided to focus on making the underskirt for my 1883 bustle outfit.  I waffled back and forth for a few days about whether I should attach the kilted section of the skirt to a yoke or a full foundation skirt, but I eventually decided that it might be easier to level the hem if I made the full skirt.  For the pattern, I used the foundation skirt from the 1887 dress in Patterns of Fashion, and I just used some random cotton shirting that I picked up at an estate sale for the fabric.  The foundation skirt, underskirt, and overskirt are all joined together at the waist to make a single garment, so this foundation layer will never be seen once the skirt is assembled.

The kilted part of the skirt is just a large tube of fabric, and I used a little less than 4 widths of the 45" fabric to make the tube.  The pleating was pretty tedious, but I was VERY grateful that I could use the lines in the plaid to measure my folds.  I sewed a stay tape to the inside of the pleats just above my knees to help keep everything in place.

When it came time to attach the kilted fabric to the foundation skirt, I caught a case of "teh stoopid" and I had a horrible time getting it all to come together right.  I'm going to fast forward through 2 1/2 hours of dumb ideas and miscalculations and just tell you about the last 30 minutes where I pinned the kilted fabric to the foundation skirt so that the hem just touched the floor, sewed it to the foundation skirt, and then covered the raw edge with some hem tape.  My dress form is a couple of inches shorter than I am, so the skirt is a little of the ground when I wear it, which is nice for tromping around outdoors.

Now I just need to re-bustle my overskirt, sew it to the waistband, and my skirt will be complete!  Hopefully I'll have time to squeeze that in tomorrow.