Petticoat or farthingale or whatever you want to call it

Well well well I don´t know what this is called, it`s very unperiod, but it works very well. It is made of very modern materials, I cheated, but it is underpinnings and no-one will probably see !!!!!??

In a shop I just run into this plastic tube and did some serious thinking, I decided that it probably was worth a try, and it could actually work. I thought that the tube was most likely elastic enough to hold its shape, not heavy and was probably not uncomfortably to sit on.

So I bought a 10 meters long and 10 mm in diameter plastic tube, to use for the channels in the skirt, petticoat, farthingale or whatever you want to call it. Since it`s not really period done.

I used some pieces of cloth from old sheets. Made a skirt that is about 215 cm broad and has a vaist that is about 135 cm broad. The lenght is individual. I did cut the cloth a little bit on the bias to make it broader at the lower hem.

The different pieces sewed together.

As there are supposed to be an elasticband at the vaist, make shure that you add a little bit extra on the lenght for this.

The bias cloth stripes that will work as channels for the tube is cut out on the bias. The best thing is if you can find something that not need hemstiching, but in my case I didn´t so I had to: Cut out long pieces on the bias, cut them at the ends, and sew them together as the pictures show, to get a long, long piece.

As you cut the cloth my advise to you, better do them broader than to thin, because the plastic tube sort of suck into the cloth, and it makes it hard to push the tube inside.

The long shaped channel was sewed as an up- going spiral. But the bottom canal followed the hem.

To get enough space for the tube I first sewed the lower hem at the channel, made a pleet that went along the channel, and then sewed the upper hem at the canal. The middel part of the canal is then not laid directly on the undercloth.

It took me 3 hours to push the tube inside the channel, and gave me completely worn out hands, really a hard job.

To my suprise I used all 10 meters of tube. Now I am very sure about my advise, do the channel large this will make it easier to push the tube along inside.

Well the final result came out pretty much as I wished. The tube holds out the pettycoat, is not heavy, and is comfortable to sit on.

This is the ready pettycoat on me.

If you can see the contures of the tube when you wear the outerskirt, just turn the pettycoat outside in.