(whimsical strings music) - I'm on a bit of a quest to make up a late Victorian ladies' version of a pinstripe suit. You know, in the event
that the sudden urge for Victorian-mob-boss-core strikes, I will be prepared. No, really, I just love
a good tailoring project, and bought a bunch of this gorgeous pinstriped suiting wool a while ago, from which I've already
made up a waistcoat, and which I wear all the time. So now it is time to
figure out the bottom half. I've done a couple of really standard late 19th/early-20th-century
walking skirts on this channel already, so I wanted to try a slightly
different cut this time. I'll be roughly following
the princess skirt pattern from Truly Victorian, which
is a slightly slimmer cut than the walking skirt, and features a very high waistline, which was also a rather
popular skirt style of this period. I'm actually intrigued to give this a try, since one of my biggest annoyances with wearing natural-waist
skirts with waistcoats is that they tend to slip down and show a little bit of shirt gap, especially at the center back, where the waistline dip
is much more of an issue. So while this skirt will
also look fabulous, I'm sure, when worn without a waistcoat, and in its full high-waisted glory, it'll also be super useful to wear with the waistcoat to ensure that everything stays
nice and properly layered. Those of you who've
been around for a while and might remember to last year, when I was discussing
all of my project plans, and all of the Truly
Victorian patterns I bought with the intention to
make stuff out of one day, this is one of those. This is the princess skirt, which is a beautifully designed skirt. It's taken pretty much straight off the 1890s, 1900 magazines. The one thing that I've forgotten about these, though, is that they include seam allowance, which is not something I enjoy in the patterns that I prefer to work in. Primarily because, well, historically, patterns are cut net, which means they don't
include seam allowance. Which, for many reasons,
actually makes them easier to work with. Let me explain. So, because I'm working with a pinstripe, I have to make sure that
my stripes are falling in exactly the right
position so that they match panel-to-panel, and they don't form
awkward cutoffs and lines, and they just match nicely, basically. I don't like to work with
seam allowance in general, because this way, if you cut it without seam allowance, then you can draw a line right next to your pattern shape and then just cut a little bit away, so you have a stitching line to consult when you're stitching things together. For many reasons, I
prefer to work this way. But anyway, so I've just realized that because this pattern
does include seam allowance, I have the added additional step, which I have not yet done yet, of going through and
marking in half an inch to figure out where the
actual net pattern shape is within this, and then cutting off the seam allowance. This is going to be a massively
time-consuming process, considering that I've
got five pieces here, which means there are
10 pieces in the skirt, which means I've got to do 10 of these carefully matched with
the stripes in the fabric. And then I've got to do
another 10 in the tarlatan. The pattern doesn't call for this, but this is what a lot of historical, or I should say, most skirts by this end-of-the century
period are including these deep seven, eight,
10" facings at the hem, so I'm going to then have to go in and cut out some facing
pieces out of tarlatan. This just helps the hem of the skirt stand out really nicely. And then I have a couple of lining pieces up at the waist. Which, I'm not sure if
that's a historical detail or if that's a detail that the pattern is telling me to do. I am going to go ahead and do it, just because it will
be a nice way to finish off the top of the waist really nicely. So that is also something I'm going to have to cut out, as well as some pockets. This pattern does not include pockets, but I am putting pockets
into this somehow, and placket pieces, et cetera, et cetera. So we've got quite a lot of cutting to do, so I'm going to see if I can try and get through these pattern
alterations quite quickly, so that I can get to the cutting. (leisurely strings music) So most of the time when
we cut out projects, we fold the fabric lengthwise and cut the piece double, so that we get both sides of the piece cut at one time. However, because I'm
working with a stripe here, I'm going to cut single,
each piece individually. This way, I can match
up each piece to ensure that the stripes are
hitting each other neatly and, in cases like the center-front seam, are matching up. I will say this with the caveat that because this is a gored skirt and the panels flare out at
slightly different angles on either side, the stripe will not match up completely, and trying to force them to do so will only leave me with
a lot of nasty easing. So I'm really just trying to go for a near-enough match, here, that is unassuming enough on the eyes without being distracting. (leisurely strings music) (scissors snipping) As aforementioned, this tarlatan layer is going to interline the skirt to help give it some light stiffening. There are infinite
historically-practiced ways to make up these skirts,
via any combination of linings and interlinings, depending on how much weight and structure you want to add. Personally, I do need some
stiffening on this project, because the suiting
wool is very lightweight and doesn't have much
structural integrity on its own. But there are also 10
panels in this skirt, so I don't want it to be too heavy. A tarlatan, therefore, is the perfect lightweight
stiffening agent. And aside from the waist
area and the hem facing, I'm not going to line
the skirt any further. With all, I jest you not, 46(!) fabric, interlining,
facing, waist lining, placket, and pocket pieces cut out, I can begin putting all
of these pieces together. Because this skirt is
interlined, not lined, I'm going to need to place each of my interlining pieces on top of like fabric pieces, line them up nicely, and baste them down to stop them from shifting out of place. Interlining treats all layers of fabric as one single piece, rather than each layer
being made up separately and stitched together at the end like a lining is. The benefit of interlining
is that each piece will take on the inherent structure of the layered components, which are all anchored
together at the seams, rather than being free to float apart from one another and maintain their individual structures. Since the whole point
of the tarlatan layer is to give my floaty wool
some structural integrity, interlining is the better
strategy in this case. The basting is done with a long pad stitch down the center and across the widest part of the gore at the bottom to make sure that the pieces are evenly centered before I can go in and thread mark along my stitching lines. (upbeat string music) (antique sewing machine ASMR) Now, I've decided to
do this ~radical thing~ where I'm going to bind off the seam edges before I put the garment together. I have made many a skirt before, and unfortunately, I know my wicked ways all too well. I know I will get to
the end of the project on the heels of a deadline, finish one seam to get the footage, and then not proceed to finish the rest of the seams
for a year and a half. But not today, Satan. Today I am being responsible and making it physically
impossible for myself to reach the fun part of putting things together before I accomplish
the requisite boring bits. This might have still resulted in two weeks of procrastinating in the form of starting two
entirely unplanned projects, but fear not, this plan
did eventually prevail. (antique sewing machine ASMR) I did also stitch up the pockets as a form of respite
from the endless trudge of seam binding, but must have shot this in the deepest depths of
Tartarus or something, so good luck actually
seeing what I'm doing, here. Long story short, they are French-seamed. I'm using my finished pocket to mark the width of the opening in the side seam that I'll need to skip over when stitching the panels together. And then, it is time to pin everything together in preparation
for said stitching. The fully-interlined
skirt panels, of course, the hem facing, and the waist lining, are all prepped and ready
to go under the machine. (yet more antique sewing machine ASMR) (soothing machine clickity clack) Once my seams are stitched and pressed, I'm just going in and
stitching the pocket bags into the seam openings with a backstitch so that they're nice and secure. Ok, so the instructions for this pattern have me doing the placket
a little bit differently from how I normally would do a placket. And I decided to give this a go, because it seemed like
a really sort of sneaky and kind of interesting way to do it. So I'm sort of giving this a go. I have made a couple of concessions that don't involve overlockers, because I don't have one of those. And I also don't
generally use those in my, well, I don't use those in my work. But it's good instruction for general, just, everyday use, and overlockers are very useful in most modern contexts,
so go forth and do that. But so, basically all this involved was this is a long rectangle of fabric cut on the fold. I've just folded this. I decided to put a bit of tarlatan just smooshed in there, just to give this a little
bit more stiffness to it. That was a personal decision, you may do as you please. This raw edge, I bound this off as the rest of the
seams are on the skirt so it matches nicely. But, you know, the instructions
say to overlock this, which you may also do if you like. There's a little basting
stitch, like, here-ish, where the hooks are sewn on so that they ever just so slightly peek out from that. This is going to be my
guideline so that I know where to stitch this to the skirt so that when this is
stitched into the skirt seam, you only see just this little
bit of hook peeking out, and that will then hook onto the hooks on the other side of the placket. And then, once I've stitched this onto the center back of the skirt, I will go ahead and configure the, this is the facing. I'll go ahead and put the hooks onto the other side of the skirt, and then configure the facing into place so that I have a nice,
finished, center-back closure on this skirt. (pensive music) After breaking four needles trying to stitch over the hooks while attaching the placket, I quickly gave up on that and proceeded to stitch
the rest of it on by hand with a backstitch, which was much more successful, and arguably faster. (pensive music continues) Then I can proceed to sew
on the corresponding hooks along the opposite center-back opening. (pensive music continues) Here's what is occurring. I have gone ahead and, well, first of all finished
off this placket edge. So the next step is to, of course, hide all of the garbage going on up here at the
upper-waist corsetty bit. It's not a corset, but, you know. But anyway, just to try and reduce bulk, I only carried the binding up to about just below the waist area because I knew that this lining bit was going to come over and
hide all of this anyway, so there was no need to bind all of that. What I have done is I've gone ahead and I've just
attached the lining section at the top and given it a little topstitch so it all stays nicely in place. And now, all I have to do is go through and I'm gonna finish all of this off by hand, just felling down the bottom edge, here, just to keep that tacked down. And then, as well as
finishing off this edge by just folding in the
edge of this lining, felling that down, making sure everything
is nice and cleaned up. And then we'll be ready to go ahead and fix up the
hem and we'll be done! The waist lining is felled down all around the loose edges. And I'm making sure only to catch the tarlatan layer along the bottom edge so that none of the stitching shows through to the outside of the skirt. (evocative music) Finally, it is time to finish up the hem. There are actually quite a
deceptive amount of stages in this process. But if I'm honest, this is one of my favorite parts of the sewing process because it is just a ton of very straightforward,
mindless hand sewing that justifies a very good Netflix binge. The first thing to do is to get the tarlatan facing stitched in, which is done by turning
under the top raw edge and felling it down. Once again, ensuring only
to catch the tarlatan layer so that the stitches don't show through to the front. This 8" tarlatan band around the hem will help to hold out the skirt and give it that
elegantly-flared structure essential to this late
19th-century period. The stitches on this don't have to be particularly fine, since they are not structural. And there is quite a lot
of hem to get around, so speed is definitely more desirable than strength for these hem tasks. (evocative music) Then the hem can be
turned up and evened out, with the outer fabric layer tucking inside the folded lower edge of the facing to produce a nice, clean, finished hem. (evocative music continues) (jaunty string music) But wait, we are not quite finished yet. Because these skirts are very long and can brush the ground,
especially on stairs, and because this is an everyday skirt meant to be worn regularly and to last as long as possible, we're going to need to
protect the hem from wear. A worn-out hem will mean
that the whole skirt will eventually need to be cut shorter, but to avoid that, many Victorian skirts of this era preemptively protected the hems with a temporary guard, either in the form of
a thick wool hem braid to encase the hem edge, or, as I'll be using today, wool brush braid. This is basically a,
well, brush-like fringe that is meant to extend a few millimeters below the actual hem edge to take any wear without obscuring the natural hem edge like a hem braid would. These hem guards are
stitched on very quickly and without much labor
put towards durability, since they'll need to be removed and replaced eventually
when they start to wear. And now, yes, the hem, and thus the rest of
the skirt are complete. The combination of lightweight wool and the lightweight tarlatan makes for a very nice and full skirt that has lots of body but that, nevertheless,
isn't too heavy to wear. In fact, it is actually very,
very lightweight to wear, and very comfortable, especially considering the
number of pieces that went into making this up. Mission accomplished
on all fronts, I think. It most certainly solves my waistcoat-gap problem brilliantly. And, more importantly, certainly lends some mob-boss vibes. Or perhaps I'm off to visit the ye olde Victorian stock exchange, or maybe teach a class of
small children, who knows? Get ye a skirt who can do it all. I'm gonna, like, go for a walk now, but, like, vaguely threateningly
or something. (chuckles) (Bernadette sneezes) (jaunty string music intensifies) (dramatic music) (bell tolls) (bell tolls) (bell tolls) (jaunty music) This video has been
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