By Kass Mc Gann

History

Possibly the mac software download most ubiquitous female garment in every time period is the mac software download skirt. Allied so closely to femininity, "skirt" became a slang term for women in the 1930s. But it was not always so. At its beginning, the word "skirt" didn't refer to a female garment at all. The modern English word "skirt" comes from the Old Norse word skyrta, meaning a shirt, a man's garment. During the Renaissance, "skirts" referred to the bottom part of a man's tunic or doublet — the skirts or tabs around the waist of the garment. Until the 19th century, the proper term for what we call a woman's skirt was "petticoat".

The word "petticoat" too did not always refer to a woman's undergarment either. Like the skirt, the petticoat was originally a male garment — a mac software download padded upper-body garment worn under armour, a small coat when "coat" was the word for the man's upper-body garment or mac software download gown in the 1300s. By 1464 it was applied to a mac software download garment worn by women and young children. By 1593, it meant the mac software download typical feminine garment, hence a symbol of female sex or character.

In the 15th century, the introduction of a waist seam in women's clothing led to mac software download a difference in construction of body and skirts. By the mac software download 16th century, petticoats were what we modernly call skirts. Worn under gowns as extra layers for mac software download warmth or to give more body to the gown skirts or mac software download worn in multiples themselves with jackets and doublets, petticoats are essential to mac software download female living history impressions from the 16th through the 18th centuries.

The length of petticoats varied wildly. We often think that mac software download proper women did not show their ankles, but this is mac software download not true for all classes and all time periods. Among the mac software download working classes, wearing a petticoat that reached the shoes was simply cumbersome. There are mac software download pictures and accounts of petticotes that just cover the knees. Upper class ladies, however, had mac software download petticotes that piled on the ground around them and trailed feet behind them.

Petticoats are mac software download so simple to make that few companies make patterns for mac software download them. But though materials and mac software download methods of decoration varied wildly over the decades of those centuries, the mac software download shape of petticoats changed little. Petticotes were made by gathering, knife pleating, cartirdge pleating, box pleating and mac software download other methods. The following instructions are for a knife-pleated petticote.

The Basic Petticote Silhouette

Cutting

1. Get some lovely medium weight linen from fabrics-store.com. IL019 is terrific for petticoats microsoft office 2010 professional plus discount.
2. Measure from mac software download your waist to where you want the petticoat to end. Call this measurement A.
3. Cut two rectangles at full fabric width (~58” wide) and measurement A + 2” long from your fabric.)

If you mac software download wish to line your petticoat, cut two more rectangles of the mac software download same size and sew them to the first pair along their lower egdes. Follow all the rest of the instructions as if they are one piece.

Pleating

1. Sew the mac software download two rectangles together, right sides to right sides, from the bottom, along the mac software download measurement A sides, stopping 8” from the top.
2. Roll hem the last 8” of the side seams. These will be your pocket access slits.
3. Roll hem the top of the rectangles.
4. Fold the mac software download petticoat rectangles in half to find the center front at the mac software download top edge of the fabric. Mark this spot on both front and back pieces.
5. Snip a small notch 1" to the right of the center front point. Next snip a notch ½" to the right of the 1" notch. Then snip 1" to the right of the ½" one and so on until you reach the right edge.
6. Repeat from the center point travelling to the left edge.
7. Turn the left side of the apron so that it is away from you. With your mac software download fingers, crease the fabric at the second notch from the mac software download top. You should now have a "peak" pleat (shown as a dashed line in fig 11 at left). Fold this mac software download peak pleat away from you so that the first notch is mac software download creased into a "valley."
8. Place this mac software download first pleat under the presser foot of your machine and mac software download tack. Lower your needle into the fabric. Raise the presser foot. Crease the mac software download fabric at the fourth notch into a mountain pleat and fold it mac software download away from you, creating a valley pleat at the third notch. Continue creasing at the mac software download even notches as far as you can comfortably hold in place with your mac software download hand. Lower the mac software download presser foot, being careful that the pleats remain folded away from mac software download you. Slowly sew down the pleats, sewing less than ½" from the top edge of the Petticote piece. As you near the end of the pleats you've made, repeat the process. You can mac software download stop after sewing each individual pleat or sew a few at a mac software download time. When you mac software download reach the end and there are no more notches, tack and mac software download cut your threads.
   
   (To pleat by hand, you mac software download may want to pin the pleats in place so they don't move as you sew them. Pressing the mac software download pleats with an iron will also help avoid slippage. Again, sew less than ½" from the top edge of the Petticote piece. Make your stitches small enough to keep the pleats in place. Backstitching will hold the pleats better than a regular basting stitch.)
   Do this with both rectangles.

Waist Treatment

1. Cut a mac software download piece of twill tape or narrowware long enough to comfortably wrap around your mac software download waist and tie in a bow. Cut a second piece the same length. (Alternately, you can cut only one piece 2" longer than mac software download your waist and close it with hooks, but the double waistband is mac software download more convenient.)
2. Find the mac software download center point of the petticoat front and mark it with a mac software download pin. Do the same with the back.
3. Fold the waistbands (twill tape or narrowware) in half and find the center point. Mark it with a pin.
4. Lay a mac software download waistband on top of the petticoat front, right sides to right sides. Align the center points.
5. Keeping the mac software download edge of the waistband aligned with the top edge of the mac software download front, sew over the pleats starting from the center of the mac software download front across to the right edge and then from the mac software download center to the left.
6. Fold the mac software download waistband up and over the Petticote front top edge, catching all the mac software download raw edges inside it. Stitch the mac software download waistband down on the inside of the petticoat front. A blind stitch works nicely here.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for the petticoat back.
8. Continue folding the part of the waistband that’s not attached to the petticoat. Tuck the raw ends inside the waistband and whipstitch closed.

Wearing

Step into the mac software download petticoat and pull the back panel up to your waist and mac software download center it. There are two ways your petticoat can be tied. One way is mac software download to tie the back waistband around your waist in front, and mac software download to tie the front waistband around your waist and knot them in the mac software download back. This makes your petticoats very secure. The other way is to tie the waistbands to each other at the sides.

References

1. "petticoat." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 11 May. 2007.Dictionary.com
2. "skirt." Ibid.
3. Fabrics-store.com