Things I've learned About Making Victorian Undergarments

I just finished Crowley's bustle and petticoat, so I thought I'd post some details about what I've learned from this whole pile of crazy. I am no expert, but these are some things I googled and failed to find results for, so I'm putting out what worked best for me.

Chemise: Make it out of thin, soft, breathable fabric.

Drawers: Drawers do not look good. Period. They're weird. Now, if you make them out of thin fabric, and trim them well, it distracts from the camel-toe front and sagging ass back, but they still aren't sexy.

Corsets: Make them longer than you think you'll need. Once you do a fitting you can trim them down a bit, but it's always better to go longer. For a single layer corset use bias strips for your channels. If you are covering your coutil in something pretty, stitch your boning channels to the inside. If you need exterior boning channels, stitch your pretty fabric and your coutil into a tube, press flat with the seam centered, and then trim the seam allowance.

If you try to do bias of pretty and bias of coutil layered on top of one another, there will be shifting and fraying and uneven-ness. If you stitch the pretty and the coutil together into a tube, trim the seam allowance, and then press, there will be fraying. Better to make a tube, press first, and then trim.

When possible, do a final fitting before all the seams are finished, in case there needs to be any minor tweaking. And always stitch pieces together, then press to one side and stitch down 1/16th inch away from the seam, then finish as you please (flat-fell into a boning channel or trim and cover with bias channel). Stitching each seam twice will let you sleep easy knowing that spontaneous corset explosion is not on the docket.

Bustles: Online tips suggest light fabric, but get the light side of well woven fabric, like twill, or heavy quilter's cotton. Making bustles out of muslin just starts a mental countdown of how long you have until it tears and you have to make another bustle.

If you are making a bustle out of an online guide (like this one) and have never made one before, two-thirds of you corseted high hip measurement makes a nice sized bustle. (So if, with your corset on, your high hip is 30 inches, the top bone of your bustle should be around 20 inches, at least if you want a bustle that looks like those I've made.) You can obviously go larger (Crowley's is the only bustle that is larger that that proportion), but if you were wondering where's a good place to start, that's where I started.

In the American Duchess guide I linked, she put the apex of her top bone 4 inches from the waistband edge. Do not put it closer to the edge than that, or the angle gets pretty extreme. If you are a larger woman, you might want the apex 5 or 6 inches from the waistband, so there is room for your butt and the bustle won't try to ride up.

Petticoats: If you are short (i.e. less than 5 feet tall), and don't mind a petticoat that lacks fluff, you can kinda get away with 3 yards of 44 inch wide material. Otherwise, you want closer to 4 or 5, in order to make ruffle-y bits. All of my petticoats followed the same basic pattern. I cut the front and the side fronts as shown, but I cut the back and back sides only to knee length (usually about 25 inches for the side backs and 26 for the back). Side backs and back stitched together to about 50-55 inches at the bottom, so I made a ruffle out of a 100-120 inch long strip, and wide enough to reach the skirt's finished length, and stitched it to the back. Then the petticoat back can be stitched to the front half, along with a placket for closures and a waistband.

For Samifer's, the whole thing was made about 6 inches shorter, and a pre-gathered eyelet band was added to the bottom. Most have cording thrown in the back, to keep it fluffy, and Dean's has two rows of ruffles. Crowley's was made 4 inches shorter, because she's just that short, and lace was added to make up for the lack of ruffle (her ruffle was only 65 inches, stitched onto the 50 inch back, because I ran out of fabric).

That skirt pattern makes for a super fluffy petticoat for a woman with a 26 inch corseted waist. It makes a decently fluffy petticoat for a woman with a 30 inch corseted waist. Larger than that, and I suggest adding width to each piece to keep the fluff. For Castiel, I subtracted 26 inches from her corseted waist measurement, then divided the difference by the number of skirt pieces, and added that much on to each. Or you could just add where you like. (To a super fluffy petticoat for a 30 inch corseted waist, you'd want to add a total of 4 inches to the pattern, which you could just add an inch to the side back and half back pieces, making 4 inches overall. That way the extra width is concentrated in the back where you want it.)

Pictures of Crowley's bustle and petticoat will follow soon, but for now I'll let you digest that brick of text.

Crossing things off the list

Having finally been able to meet up with Crowley and work on things for her, I can officially cross stuff off the to-do list.

Firstly, Crowley's chemise. I was going to do more detailing on it, but lazy happened.

Close up of the handmade lace.

Secondly, Crowley's drawers. I still need to add buttons and buttonholes, but she needs to try them on so I can get the fit. Also, considering that it is physically impossible for me to pass up sale buttons, how do I not have any that are plain black? The best I have are domed black velvet buttons, but A) I may end up using those on Crowley's bodice, B) there aren't many so I can't waste them, and C) domed buttons under a corset sounds painful. So I need to buy MORE buttons. (I love buttons, but I can never spend less than $20, because I will buy buttons by the crapload.)

Close up of the stacked ribbon trim. I was going to do 1/4 inch tucks around the legs and stitch the red ribbon to the underside so that an 1/8 inch of red ribbon would peek out from the tucks, but once again lazy happened.

I choose to do Crowley's undergarments in black since all he wears on the show is black, with a touch of red because he is the daring-est devil you've ever met. It's a perfect color scheme for the King of Hell.

The corset, chosen for the player not the character, is an olive green stitched in gold. The whole thing is finished except the seams, since I like to do a final fitting before everything is flat-felled and encased. Once I do the fitting, I can bind it, bone it, and floss it. Considering I want to have everything done in 4 months, I need to get busy.

Project Steps:
Chemises (Completed)
Drawers (Completed)
Corsets (4 of 5 Completed)
Bustles (2 of 5 Completed)
Petticoats (2 of 5 Completed)
Skirts (1 of 5 Started)
Bodices (Not Started)

Just keep sewing, just keep sewing . . .

Castiel's Chemise and Drawers

Castiel's chemise and drawers are finished. They are a yoked style, more popular during the Civil War, because I found a pattern for one dated for 1888 titled "Old-fashioned Chemise." So although yoked style was no longer popular, it was still present. And considering that Jimmy Novak, Castiel's human vessel, seemed like a modest, old fashioned kind of guy, I went with it. Also, that previous sentence had a lot of commas. It is trimmed with "Mile-A-Minute" lace, that actually was surprising fast. As in, I crochet almost five feet in a day. Not a 'I'm going to crochet until my fingers bleed' day either, a day where I was babysitting a five year old, driving around a lot, and having to take regular breaks to push her on the swings.

I don't have any full shots, since I don't have good lighting in the evening, but here are some close-ups:

The button is decorative, and the lace has been moved to the side for the photo.

The sleeves ended up being too tight, so I sliced them open to the shoulder and covered them in matching bias tape. Bias tape is the sewing equivalent of duct tape. It fixes EVERYTHING. (Well, almost)

Lace and tucks on the legs of the drawers.

I'll be putting up full pictures later, and if Cas is willing, pictures of it being worn. Until then, here's the pattern for the lace.

Mile-A-Minute Lace Edging

     First Row
Chain 7
Work (2 dc, ch 2, 3 dc) into 4th ch from hook, skip 2 ch, dc into last ch, ch 3, turn.

     Second Row
Work (3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc) into ch-2 space of previous row, ch 3, turn.

     Third Row
Work (3 dc, ch 2, 3 dc) into ch-2 space of previous row, dc into top of turning chain of previous row, ch 3, turn.

Repeat rows 2 and 3 for pattern.

Dean's Combination

I have finished the trimmings on Dean's combination, and successfully taken some low-quality selfies. (the camera on my phone isn't great quality, but I work with what I have)

The pattern for the combination was of my own creation, and could have been better fitted. The waist is too low, closer to where I wear pants normally and not my actual waist, and the drawers could have been pleated more evenly. As it stands, the butt looks like a diaper to me. But being this is underwear, meant to protect the corset and provide modesty, so I'm not terribly bothered by its failings.

View of the front: This combination is made of white muslin, trimmed in lace, and closes with eight buttons, a bow at the neckline, and a ribbon sash at the waist.

View of back: Dropped waistline obvious, as well as that diaper effect I mentioned.

Close-up of front, my messy dreads, and the disapproving expression I wear when dealing with my phone's camera.

Details:

Lace Trimming: This is crocheted lace I made is "Trimming for a chemise" from Weldon's Practical Crochet, vol. 10. It is sewn onto the neck edge as well as both leg openings. Originally, the scallop points along the bottom were larger and more lace-y, but I wanted something more toned down for Dean. The ribbon is a burgundy velvet ribbon found in the dollar bins at Joann's. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough for the legs as well. I may replace it with a different ribbon later.

Hand stitched buttonholes, which I'm proud of myself for actually doing (even if I did do them wrong). My sewing machine does have an attachment for making buttonholes, but they're ugly so I decided to do buttonholes by hand.

Lastly, the belt. This is some burgundy satin ribbon I picked up at Michael's. It's polyester, but it's hard to find ribbon that isn't. Towards the left of the picture you can just barely make out where I sewed the ribbon to the back seam. Then at each dart and seam I used cotton crochet thread to make belt loops.

All in all I'm quite pleased. I'm currently working on lace to trim Castiel's chemise and drawers, as well as drafting corset patterns. With many luck I'll have all my foundation garments done by April.

Combination Underwear: Complete

For the Victorian Femme Supernatural Cosplay, I have picked the 1880's as the decade to dress. People tend to lump the Victorian era together, but styles changed considerably over the years. Just compare the more modern 1960s, 70s, and 80s; styles change. The 1880s had bustled back, giving women great booty. Sleeves were tight and bodices tailored. Cotton had become cheaper, leading it to slowly replace linen in dress.

In previous decades women wore a chemise, which was a mid-thigh length slip, and drawers, which were knee length crotchless shorts, as undergarments. The chemise was worn to protect the corset from sweat and body oils, while the drawers were worn for modesty's sake should the wind or an accident cause the skirt to blow up. They were crotchless to ease bathroom use. The 1880s saw a new garment, the combination, which was a chemise and drawers in one. By this point many of the petticoats worn by women were removed in order to create a leaner look and to make lives easier. By combining the chemise and the petticoat into one, more garment bulk was removed.

I figured Dean would wear a combination, because when you live out of a suitcase you want to carry as few articles as possible. My combination is white muslin, with a bit of lace and a burgundy velvet ribbon at the neck. The pattern is my own, based on an actual 1880s drawers and chemise pattern, which I linked in my last post. I still need to sew on buttons and make buttonholes, so pictures will follow soon.