50's Style Petticoat

Back when I was planning my 50's style dress I knew I also had to have a petticoat to get the look right. I got some tulle out of my mother's stash (in there because we had used it as part of a salt & pepper costume for the both of us some years ago), around 2m x 1,60m. I didn't use any specific tutorial because petticoats are pretty straightforward, but cut the tulle into nine 160cm long strips of around 20cm width and sewed them into tubes (one strip, two strips, and four strips). I gathered these tubes by sewing some yarn to the top edge via zig-zag stitch and tried to sew the gathered biggest tube to the ungathered middle tube - and that's where I ran into trouble. See, getting tulle that has been gathered to half its original lenght to cooperate with a sewing machine can be rather frustrasting - and so into the box the whole thing went. Until last weekend, when I knew I needed a petticoat for my now finished dress!
If you read my previous post, you know that I was already well-adjusted to hand-sewing by then (I watched the documentary "Canada - A People's History" troughout sewing on the dress and petticoat and am currently at episode 13 of 17, with each episode being just short of two hours), plus I really wasn't prepared to give the tulle another try on the machine, so I made myself comfortable on my floor with a blunt needle:

Okay, not watching any movies here, but I got through 3 albums of The Tallest Man On Earth before the biggest tube was connected to the middle!
I useds backstitches to sew all tubes together, using a blunt needle when it was just tulle (why risk stabbing yourself when the fabric you're working with is already full of holes?) and a pointy one to connect the tulle to the linen/cotton top part.
That top part was actually a petticoat I'd made for a halloween costume years ago and that has been sitting in my closet ever since, only once in a blue moon being used underneath a pretty see-through white rtw skirt. It's basically a 1m tube of fabric with two ruffles, but had the perfect length and width (plus was already assembled... I'm lazy, did I already tell you that?), so I attached the tulle right above the lower ruffle - I kinda like the effect it gives.

Here you can see all the layers. Of course the effect on the overall look is greater when I'm actually wearing it, because then it can stand out against my legs instead of a thin wooden collumn... ^^
After wearing it, though, I realized I'd have to make another cotton petticoat to wear underneath that one, because gathered tulle is just - so - itchy! I already have some suitable fabric for that, but haven't started cutting yet. Ah well, if I procrastinate for too long, I'm gonna have to survive an itchy evening, because the next Rockabilly concert is in October! Yay :)

50's Style dress

With summer pretty much over, I just finished a summer dress. Well, it's bound to be warm again next year, and until then, I'm planning to wear it to at least one Rockabilly concert!

The finished dress, complete with crocheted gloves and a tulle petticoat. I didn't take any usefull in-progress pictures and I haven't gotten dressed up yet to take proper pictures either, so this is what you get ;)
I think I started this dress sometime last year when I got the idea that I wanted a strapless 50's dress, held up by bones connected to a waist-tape - in theory that should work a lot better than modern strapless dresses, that rely way too much on elastic fabric and always slip! I'm happy to report that the dress actually stays where it's supposed to when the tape is closed, it's just hard to sit for a longer period of time because - me wearing no girdle - the tape tends to cut into the waist when sitting.

Waist-tape and unfinished insides. Come on, the outside is gorgeous, what more do you want? :D
The fabric is a thin cotton with a floral print that I bought way too much of for another (maxi-) summer dress that didn't happen and so I used the fabric to mock up a top out of my usual bodice-block and then cut off the shoulders at a point where I was sure my strapless bra wouldn't show. I don't remember why I didn't (flat-)line the bodice, but knowing me I'd say a mixture of laziness and the lack of a proper white fabric. All of that combined with impatience (I didn't doublecheck the fit on my dressform) led to some weird wrinkling across the chest when I put in the boning (cable-ties for the win!). Not feeling like taking the thing apart again, especially since I had put in the zipper by hand, it disappeared into a box until this summer when I took it to my parents', where my dressform is. When I told my mother of my plight, she suggested simply pleating the excess fabric "away" and after some trying (first on the dressform, then on me) I found a way that not only reduced the wrinkling considerably, but also gives some nice detailing to the bodice, so I call that a win!

Pleating detail. I promise, the dress wrinkles a lot less on my squishy, non-standardized body than it does on my hard dressform!
Since the dress is meant for dancing and I had a whole lot of fabric (and still do), I made a full circle skirt (a decision I came to regret when it came to hemming). Oh, and of course, because it's a dress by me, it has pockets!

They've got zippers (remember, dancing!), are located on both hips and are big enough to hold my cellphone, although I'm not sure putting it in there would be the smartest idea (kinda heavy).
Both top and bottom hem of the dress are piped (because I simply love piping). And here's where it gets kinda crazy: putting up the sewing machine here is kind of a hassle, as is getting out the ironing board, plus I wouldn't be able to watch anything while sewing on the machine, so I did it by hand. All 5,20m of skirt hem. Twice, actually, since I had to fix the folded up raw edge to the skirt! But alas, that last part I couldn't have done by machine anyway (at least not invisibly) plus I don't think I could have done either step on machine for the top edge of the bodice, so I had some practice in piping and the whole process made the dress even more dear to me, so I'm gonna count that as another win ;)

Here's what the dress looked like on me at that point (sorry for the quality, it's an antique mirror). As you can see way above, I made some accessories to go with it, but I'm gona write them up in seperate posts so as not to let this one get too long ;)