Victorian Walking Skirt Completed

And lo, a sewing weekend was had and much progress was made. I ventured out of the house once to get some essentials, but apart from that, I had my nose to the presser foot.. ok not quite that close. I'm very pleased with the progress I made.

In a previous post regarding my walking skirt, I was concerned with the shortness of the back hem. To solve this, I added a hem of box pleated purple taffeta. I cut the taffeta as a 4 inch wide strip, and set the pleats as I worked with a combination of pins and steam, before sewing them onto the hem of the skirt.


In order to correct the hem shortness which only existed on the back of the skirt, I sketched a chalk line around the hem of the skirt along when the pleats would lie, not where the sewing line would be. This allowed me to position the trim lower along the back hem where it was needed, and a little higher on the front hem.

My original plan had been to create a double line of pleated trim along the bottom of the skirt, and I did pin & pic a few times to try is out. But the simple look of just one line of trim looked so sweet and perfect, I didn't want to go further. Yes, I fail at Victorian accessorising, I am much too plain in my ruffles. 

Here's the finished piece. It's collapsed a little as the underskirt wasn't in place when I took these pictures, but I think she's going to do me a very pretty turn on the grounds of Coopershill Manor this weekend. 

Victorian Walking Skirt

*mumble* weeks to go now. Far too few to be counting, lest I panic completely at this stage. So I decided to get one more item knocked off the list; a simple Victorian walking skirt.

Once again using Truly Victorian pattern TV208, I didn't actually have enough fabric to make a properly full skirt, so I cut the front, side front and side back panels in full, then made do with the last of the fabric on the fold for the back panel. Thankfully, that's turned out to be just full enough!

 

I think it may be a little too short on the back hem (wouldn't do to have the underskirt peeking out), so I plan to attach a pleated trim to the hem as soon as I can find a complimentary fabric for the purpose. Though with so much still to sew, the skirt might just do as it is for the costuming weekend away, with trims added later.