An 1860's Gathered-Front Day Dress: Part Three

Part Three: The Skirt

I knew I wanted a very full skirt for this dress, so I used roughly 5 and half yards of fabric. There are two seams, one on each side. I also took advantage of the selvedges and used them as the waist and hem edges. It makes the print go the "wrong" way (Horizontal instead of vertical to match the bodice), but I'm not overly concerned about it. I faced the hem with a wide strip of fabric instead of lining the whole skirt. I decided to cartridge pleat (or gauge) the skirt to a waistband and then sew the skirt and bodice together. I wanted a dogleg closure, so the bodice closes up the center front and the skirt closes on the right.

Here's the skirt pinned to the bodice. I didn't take pictures of the whole construction process, unfortunately. It was all a huge mass of fabric, anyways, and would have been difficult to photograph.

I split the seam for about 12 inches down from the waist so the dress would be easy to get into.

I used the period technique of finishing the hem edge first and then adjusting the length at the waist. The excess is folded down on the wrong side and helps create volume with the gauging.

The skirt was a complete bugger to gauge and attach to the waistband and then to the bodice. It's just so much fabric volume and it seemed to have a mind of it's own as I was trying to manipulate things around to get the right angle for hand sewing.