Making Petticoats

[Celeste_Orchid]

I'm a total new at making these. Please help?

[angelicstar]

In general I would suggest buying petticoats if you can find one in the shape and length you need.
Seriously, making petticoats takes so much tulle, you'd spent about the same amount of money on just buying the materials as you would if you bought a pre-made petticoat.
After materials, you'd have to count in hours or cutting and gathering tulle, plus the sewing. It is a lot of work if you want a nice full petticoat.

Only if you need one made from a specific fabric/color, or something unique like a hoopskirt would I consider going through the trouble of making it.

Incidentally, CosWorx does offer 4 different styles of petticoats, including ones that work great for lolita wear. We will also have more styles coming sooon.
http://cosworx.com/home.php?cat=2467

At least search around for pre-made ones before attempting to make your own - as someone who's done both I completely attest to that.

[Chibi Ice Wolf]

Yaya is right, pain the butt to make XD And it does take a lot of tulle. The first one I made was not for EGL, it's very very short, and I used this nice fabric I found that wasn't itchy at all like tulle (sadly I can't find it again! >.<). The second one I made I used a stiff tulle, which is all I could find and was too stiff/very itchy. I made a yoke, which is like an extra wide waistband, so the poof wouldn't start too high. Then I cut long strips and gathered them at the top. I ended up with two tiers. I made the bottom tier too full, so the shape isn't quite what I wanted. It would be better for like, Cardcaptor Sakura than EGL. XD I attached a picture of it. I've found it's better to use two layers, with 2-3 tiers which are less full than just one really full layer.

[Fénicia]

I have a tutorial for making a Petticoat on my site (http://www.the-mermaid.tk) ;)

[Nina Star 9]

i have made a pettiicoat before out of a stiff netting (not like a tulle with the fine holes, but fairly large holes. it is not pretty, but it gets the job done). you have to use a lining, though, otherwise it is really itchy.

what i did was i made a normal rectangular gathered skirt out of the lining and i sewed a few ruffles to it- one short one on the bottom, two shorter ones above that, and two ones that reach the bottom of the petti above that. the shorter ruffles are about twice the length around of the two longer ones, which makes them fluffier. this provides a rounder shape that is more flattering to the hips, becasue most of the fluff is down lower than the hips. this actually worked out pretty well, and if i can make it in a weekend by hand, anyone can make it farily quickly. ^.~

the best part is that it cost les than $5 (2.50 for netting and 1.00 for lining) becasue i got the netting while joann's was having a 2 for 1 tulle and netting sale. (it has 5 yards on the petti)

if it will not show, then my method works well and is farily simple. but if you want a pretty one or one with a diffrent shape (i like really full, round dresses, which is not what most lolis tend to favour), then go with either a store-bought one or a tulle one using the above method.

good luck! :D

[a-tastic]

i agree with yaya, too.
unless you have a breathtaking stroke of luck in finding inexpensive supplies, and have oodles of time, i would just buy one.
i've made three petticoats thus far, the most recent being the most obnoxious due to some severely wide-weave tulle. i made myself a densely packed mini petticoat (http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=506083)a couple of years ago, and used starched wide cotton lace rather than tulle, with three inner cotton base layers, and it took quite a while to make since i did it by hand. it was, however, alot less stressful to use a woven fabric than tulle.
i feel like my needle isn't hitting anything half the time with tulle.

if you keep your eyes peeled at yard sales, estate sales, and thrift stores, you may run across massive rolls of vintage lace (which is what happened for me, for $5 for approx. 100 yards) which is a wallet godsend. lately, i've seen alot of tulle on clearance, too. strange..

if you have vintage shoppes in your town, check them out. occasionally they'll have tiered crinolines from the fifties that can be altered.

otherwise, good luck, and PM me if you'd like help!!

[AuroraHermione]

I recently made a petticote (not for EGL, but for under a skirt of a similar style). I paid about $15 for supplies (elastic and tule) and it took me a couple hours. I basically cut the tulle into long strips of varying lengths (I doubled the length for each tier, but there was extra each time, gathered it (I basically pleated the tulle very closely together and pinned each one) and sewed the gathered art to the bottom part of the tier above it. All in all, very dull to do. I made it myself because I was bored and had nothing else to sew, but unless you ahve something weird like that, I would suggest buying one, because it's really a waste of time if you have other things to do, and the premade one on cosworx.com costs about $8 more than I paid for supplies and looks a lot nicer.

[honeysaliva]

I made a ghetto petticoat from an existing one and it cost me 8CAD. My friend is making a petticoat that costs about 10-15CAD which is pretty much tubes of tulle (which can be bought online), fabric, lace, and some elastic. It's actually not that hard and doesn't take that long. It's pretty much a bunch of rectangles and gathering (I <3 to gather).

The most important thing to remember is to line it because it IS very itchy. x_____x

[AllStarAlice]

For serious! Just buy one. I made one for my Maya costume and it was a pain in the arse because I had never made one before. I think I ended up going to get tulle from the store about 5 times cuz I always ran out and still didn't have enough pouf.

This time around I bought one from a costume store for $25, for my Miwako and Chii costumes. WAY better idea.

[KaoruKamiya]

I made a petti coat just a moment ago, it was really easy actually but I also though took the under lining from an old petti coat my mom had and added to it a sturdy type of netting fabric netting, not fishing netting

[Yumeko]

Not to sound as harsh as some of the other replies here and speaking as a person wo has bought and made petticoats, unless you have alot of sewing experience I would not tackle making a petticoat, espically one that has multiple tiers.

[Celeste_Orchid]

thanks for all the replies everyone! I'll be sure to buy my own some time and try making one after I gain more experience. haha its sounds like a Final Fantasy problem.

[Lady Hoshi]

My problem is there is very few petticoats and crinolines that fit me. The the few that do are over one hundred dollars. And even then they aren't the shape or length I want.

Making my own is my only option. I checked out the tutorial for petticoats, but does anyone know where to find tutorials for crinolines.

[a-tastic]

lady hoshi:
i have the same problem with the sizes, too.
i haven't yet found a decent online tutorial, but i ended up making three tiers of cotton base (3 rectangles with an elastic, joined top), and on each level, three levels of densely ruffled lace in gradients, so that the longest and tightest tier to my thighs was the absolute bottom layer.
how short do you want yours to be?

[Lady Hoshi]

a-tastic:

I have plans for every length of skirt. One of my next costumes is knee length and the other is floor length.

For the floor length one, I will be taking the advice of a bridal shop sales girl. She said to acheive maximum puffy-ness to wear a hoop skirt with a crinoline over it.

The knee length one I want to make an extremely fluffly round petticoat. I like the tutorial that fenicia has on her site.

[Tia]

Lady Hoshi: I had the same problem. I hate gathering, so what I decided to do was use box pleats instead. I've used them a lot in the past to replace ruffles since most anime-style ruffles look like pleats anyways.

What i usually do is first get a basic skirt pattern for yourself. It would be the width of your hips plus a seam allowance. You would want to decide now if you are going to use side seams or one seam in the back. I've done both ways, and back seams are usually less work. I usually go with that unless your overskirt/dress is going to have side seams and you want to be consistent. You will need to measure the length from your waist to your knees in four places: front middle, sides, and back middle. You will need to draw these points on your pattern and then connect them evenly. Usually the front will just be straight and the back will start where the front left off and curve downwards slightly to allow for your butt.

You will also want to figure out how many layers you want the petticoat to have. You need to multiply the amount of fabric the regular skirt pattern took by three for each layer, and then multiply that by the number of layers you want. For the poofiest petticoat I have made so far, I used seven layers. You might want to use five or six, but seven might also work for you, since you said you want it to be very poofy.

Multiply the length (hips plus a little extra for seam) by 3 and cut out a piece this length. If you're doing side seams there will be two pieces. This tutorial will only be for a back seam because it's easier to write, but you would just have more pieces and seams if you did side seams. After you cut the piece out, do a quick straight stitch along the cut line to keep the piece together. Then pleat it. You will need to pleat the top and the bottom to keep it together.

Line up the flat edge of the pattern to the fold in the bottom of the pleated fabric piece so that the bottom of the petticoat won't need seaming to look finished in the end. Trace the non-straight side onto the pleated piece of fabric as best you can. Remove the pattern and unpleat the large skirt. Connect the dotted lines you made and cut. Do a running stitch along the cut edges to keep the piece together.

If you are using four or less layers, just use this piece as your new pattern and cut out three other pieces and do a running stitch on the cut edges of each piece. Then skip the next two paragraphs and go on to the one after.

If you are going to do more than four layers, it is a good idea to make them sewn to a regular skirt spaced out. I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to on the next petticoat I make. I thought it wouldn't be a problem on my 7-layer petticoat, but it was very difficult to get it through the sewing machine. I probably needed to handsew the last part of the waist band but I never have yet since I'm very lazy when it comes to handsewing. You're going to still cut out another 2 or 3 pieces using the first piece as a pattern (depending on how many layers you want), but after that you will need to position the piece about halfway off the new fabric. As long as you keep the folds parallel, and are taking off an equal amount of fabric on each side, it should be fine. Once you have all six or seven layers cut, sew a straight stitch along the cut edges.

You will also need to make a normal skirt to sew the layers onto. If you used the same fabric for your initial pattern, you can just use that, but if not just use the pattern like you were using the larger piece with the straight side on the fabric fold

Trim very close to the stitches you made, making sure to not cut the stitches. Turn your stitch length to zero and the width to a couple notches below the largest it can go. With your needle centered, line the stitches you made before up to the notch in the center of your presser foot. Don't start at the very edge of the fabric. Start a few inches down and when you finish, go back and get the rest. It helps the machine to not eat your fabric this way. XD The key is to keep a consistent pressure on the fabric using both hands, one in front and one in back, to keep the fabric taut. If it's not going through the machine at a constant rate, you will either get lumps or holes in the stitching. I call this overlocking, but it's basically just embroidering the edges so the fabric doesn't fray. Once you've done it one time, go back over it using the largest width of zig-zag stitch your machine has, or one below the largest.

Sew the ends of each fabric piece together to make tubes. Use a slightly larger seam allowance than you did at the top of the layers (about half inch is good). Then, without trimming, overlock the edge of the fabric. You can do this by picking a random place that isn't too close to the stitch line, doing a mid-width zig-zag stitch first, and then trimming the fabric very close to it. Go back over the smaller zig-zag with the larger one at the same place, and that should completely cover the raw edge.

Then all you have to do is put the box pleats into the top and do a quick stitch to keep 'em in place. And sew all the layers together. This is really easy for the 4-or-less petticoat, but a little more difficult for the one with more layers. If you're doing a larger one, take the full-length pieces and sew them all together with the non-pleated skirt on the bottom. Then take the shorter pieces and stitch them together. Look at them on the skirt and mark about every hand-length where they need to be sewn to fall the same length as the rest of the layers. Then, take the side with the seams showing upside-down and position the overlocked edge about 1/4 from the pins all the way around.

All you need to do now is make a waistband, attach it, and add elastic. You can make a waistband by cutting a piece of material about 3 inches wide by the length of the top of the petticoat you have so far plus about an inch for the seam. Fold over one of the long edges about 1/4" from the edge and do a single seam. Stitch the short edges together using a 1/2" seam and then overlock the edge using the same technique you did on the vertical seam of the petticoat layers.

Take the long side you didn't do a seam on, and stitch it to all the layer of the petticoat on the inner side (the one with the seams and that will be touching your waist). Pull the piece over to the front and edge-stitch the side that you single-seamed. Leave a few inches at the end unseamed. Take a piece of 1" wide elastic and use a safety pin or elastic threaded to pull it through the waist band. Try the skirt on to make sure the elastic allows you to pull the petticoat over your hips and is still tight enough on your waist. Sew the elastic together and trim it. Release it into the waist band and finish sewing the seam you left undone.

If you're looking to find cheap fabric to make a petticoat with, I have found that the dollar bin at wal*mart works well if you don't need a specific color. They usually have pastel green, blue, and pink there in droves. You can always bleach it if you want, white, I think. Otherwise, plain cotton works fine. Sorry this was so long and picture-less. I haven't had time to work on the next petticoat I'm making yet since I've gotten hung up on school and the applique on another project. I will try to get a picture tutorial done as soon as I can. Here are two pictures of what the finished product might look like. They were made using organza, which is a lot more expensive and stiffer than cotton, but this is just to get an idea of the amount of poofiness. You can always starch your cotton if you want it to be more poofy.

My seven layer petticoat: http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=534702
Four layer petticoat I made for Joanie: http://images.cosplay.com/showphoto.php?photo=576282

[Serey-chan]

Yes, I would second the "buying is a better idea" opinion. The only way it wouldn't be a pain would be if your sewing machine has a gathering function. Even then, machines make mistakes. XD

[Malicious]

i'd buy one myself, but i think it'll be fun making one, esp when i have alot of free time (cuz its summer) till the next con. there's nothing wrong with trying to make one either.

[Shunhades]

I have a tutorial for making a Petticoat on my site (http://www.the-mermaid.tk) ;)

Omg thank you so much! I can't tell you how long i've been looking for instructions on how to make a good petticoat. (Cause I didn't like any of the ones I saw in stores.) Though it did take me abit to figure out the language to have it translated XD.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

[Carlton]

It is very time consuming one if you try to make a petticoat on your own, rather than buying one as per your taste. It is easy one, as you will have a varied choice while buying.

[Shunhades]

It is very time consuming one if you try to make a petticoat on your own, rather than buying one as per your taste. It is easy one, as you will have a varied choice while buying.

I actually found making one wasn't hard at all. It was very easy, and I can make it how puffy or long I want or need it. =3

[celticfreefall]

I recommend just buying one from Candy Violet or In The Starlight.

[sarsha.dawn]

http://sugardale.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-make-petticoat.html
^^ im not sure if anyone else posted it, i was to lazy to read...butt i found this one and its so helpful!!1!!!!!!!
ALSO
http://home.scarlet.be/fenicia/tutoral/petticoat/petticoate.htm
that one is half as good as the first
not sure why youd need them both baha
but yea it helped me so much! ^_^

[Cosplay_Kitten]

http://sugardale.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-make-petticoat.html
^^ im not sure if anyone else posted it, i was to lazy to read...butt i found this one and its so helpful!!1!!!!!!!
ALSO
http://home.scarlet.be/fenicia/tutoral/petticoat/petticoate.htm
that one is half as good as the first
not sure why youd need them both baha
but yea it helped me so much! ^_^
The first one I posted and it was a no because its not the right shape, I couldn't tell you on the second...