1760s Painted Silk Sacque Gown: Making The Petticoat

Hey everyone, it's Samantha the couture courtesan, and in this video I'm going to be showing you how I made the petticoat for my 1760s silk sack gown. I realized in my first video that I didn't show you any images of what this project was going to look like, so here are some of the gowns that I've been looking at to get inspiration for my project. This is a really gorgeous example, and I love the stylization and the colors in the painting, but the width of the hoops are much more formal than any event that I'll probably be going to, and the same with this gown from the V&A. Love the style of the flowers, but the hoops are just way too big. Luckily there are other examples of more subdued silhouettes from the 1760s, so there's this gown in the Colonial Williamsburg collection, although it's sadly missing a bunch of its trim. I am going to be doing relatively simple design, so there's this other example from the V&A that has some really beautiful sort of serpentine trim that was definitely popular earlier in the 1750s, but in the 1760s you get simpler trim that's starting to become more fashionable. The first thing I did to make the petticoat was to cut panels for the petticoat the longest length that I would need them, so that's over the side of the hoops, and then I stitched them together at the sides. You can see in the back here of the petticoat, I did half of it in plain linen because it's not going to show under the gown, and this is something that you see in plenty of extant garments, and it was done to save the really expensive fabric, and I've left pocket slits open on the sides. Next I hemmed the bottom of the petticoat with just a simple hemming stitch, and I can hem the petticoat right now because it's at the top of the petticoat that will actually adjust the length, so it'll be longer on the sides to go over the side of the hoop, and it'll be shorter in the center front and center back. And here's what that finished hem looks like, so just tiny prick stitches on the outside and longer traveling stitches on the back. To make the trim, I wanted to pink the edges, since this is something you see really often in silk. In the period it would have been done with a pinking iron like this one, where the sharp edge is placed on the fabric and struck with a mallet to create that cut edge, but my pinking iron is not sharpened, so I'm going to be doing a modern shortcut where I use this template and these scallop pinking shears. I've cut strips of fabric to use for the trim and fold it in half so that I can pink both the top and bottom edges at the same time. I take my template and line it up on the fabric. I don't want to get too close to the edge or I might cut off some of my scallops, and then I just trace with a pencil along the edge of the template and I've folded it so that the right side of the fabric is to the inside, so right now I'm drawing on the wrong side of my fabric. Once that's done, I can begin cutting along my line with my scallop pinking shears. And here's what the finished strip looks like. You'll notice that I cut my strips from selvedge to selvedge. This will help prevent excess fraying as opposed to cutting them the length of the fabric. Now I can begin pleating the trim onto the petticoat. I'm just doing this by eye, making sure that my pleats more or less look even, but I'm not being meticulous enough to actually measure. I'll do this for all three rows of the trim on the petticoat, which is a narrow row at the bottom of the petticoat, a wider flounce in the middle, and another narrow row on top of that. This seems to be a pretty common arrangement for trim on petticoats during this time period. To sew the trim onto the petticoat, I'm using a running backstitch, which is a combination of running stitches with a backstitch thrown in there every now and then. I find that it is much easier to put trim on the petticoat before it has been attached to the waistband, so I can lay it out flat and see the trim in its entirety. Once the trim was on, I could put the petticoat over the hoops on my mannequin to see how I needed to shape the top of the petticoat. You'll see that it's longer at the sides and shorter at the center front and center back. To finish the waist of the petticoat, I've cut two pieces of tape, one for the front half of the petticoat and one for the back half of the petticoat, each one long enough to tie around my waist. Starting with the tape for the front half of the petticoat, I fold the tape in half so that I can find the center point and mark it with a pin. Next, I need to measure from this middle point to find where I want the sides of my petticoat to end. To do this, I divide my waist measurement into four and I like to add a little bit of extra so that the sides of my petticoat can overlap and I don't have any gaps. So now I have the center front and the sides of the front half of my petticoat marked onto the waistband. So in true Samantha fashion, I skipped a few steps in this section of the petticoat because I've done this so many times. So this isn't a true tutorial and I'll link to a really great petticoat sew along tutorial done by Burnley and Trowbridge Company and they'll take you step by step through making a petticoat. Basically what I'm doing right now is pinning the center and the sides of the petticoat and then I find the middle of each section and pin that part of the petticoat to the corresponding section of the waistband. Here's the front half of the petticoat pleated to the waistband. You'll notice that there is a box pleat at the center front to help the front of the petticoat lay smooth under my gown. The back of the petticoat is pleated in much the same way except that the knife pleats are going in the opposite direction. That is, they're pointing towards the center back and there will be an inverted box pleat at the center back. To attach the waistband to the petticoat, I'm using a felling stitch to attach the bottom edge of the tape to the silk. The tape is covering the raw edge of the top of the petticoat, about 3 eighths of an inch. Once I finish stitching one edge of the waistband, I'll fold over the tape to completely encase the raw edge of the silk. Then I'll stitch the other edge of the tape to the petticoat using the same felling stitch. When putting on petticoats, I like to start by tying the back part of the petticoat around my waist and I usually offset the bow because I'll be wearing multiple petticoats and I don't want to have all that bulk in one place. Then I bring up the front of the petticoat and tie that around my waist. And here is the finished petticoat! I really hope you enjoyed getting to see a little bit of my process. Again, I'll put a link in the description to the Burley and Trowbridge petticoat sew along so you can have a more in-depth tutorial on how to make an 18th century petticoat. Now I've got to get back to painting so I can make the rest of the gown. Don't forget to like and subscribe and leave any questions you have in the comments. See you next time!