Wedding Outfit: the Petticoat

I'm not sure you would actually call this a petticoat, more of an underskirt to help give the actual skirt the volume I wanted.  I did think of making a proper petticoat, but I wasn't sure if I would actually have the time.  Maybe some other time.  For this quick project I decided to use tulle as it's a very light weight fabric and an easy way to make volume.  I got 4m of it and actually ended up with much more than I had intended as it was actually folded up more times in the shop than I realised.  I didn't use a pattern for this, but just put it together based on the shape I wanted.  

The plan was to make two layers that was made up of two tiers of the tulle, with each tier being about 55cm wide.  The length of each tier was based on my hip measurements, with the top tier being twice my hip circumference and the bottom tier being four times my hip circumference.  Both of these were gathered to give the volume I wanted.  Construction was pretty simple.

First I put in a long stitch along one of the longer edges of the bottom tiers and pulled on the thread to gather it until it became the same length of the top tier.  I then sewed the two tiers together.

I then put a long stitch along the top tier and gathered that in until it fitted the size of my waist.  I had originally planned to then sew this into its own waist band, but I realised that this would just add an extra layer to my waist and would be something else I would need to manhandle on the day.

When I first attached it to the waist band of the skirt and tried it on I realised that it was far too bulky around the waist.  So I detached it from the skirt and undid the gathers.  I then put in darts instead to draw in the waist width and reattached it to the skirt's waistband.  This worked much better and still produced the extra volume I was wanting.

I then sewed up the sides of the two layers, stopping just below the opening of the skirt.  The last step was to ensure that the hem of the petticoat was just above the hem of the skirt.  I hung up the skirt inside out so that the petticoat was on the outside to my dressmaker's mannequin and left it for a little bit of time to allow any stretching to happen.  Then I cut the hem by the needed amount.

This petticoat actually turned out a lot better than I was expecting and, even though you won't actually see it on the day, I'm a little proud of it.  It has made my skirt sit exactly how I want it without adding any unnecessary bulk or weight and I might actually leave it on the skirt after the wedding.  I have to admit that this type of 'winging it' sewing of probably my favourite way to sew as it's easier to fit the garment to my shape.  So that's one more wedding crafting done and that now leaves the top and outer skirt to sew, and my shawl to knit.