idyllicchick

If you want to make a fabulous, inexpensive, easy hoop skirt click here. Come back here and scroll down, though, for a couple of pointers on the soaker hose. Yes, soaker hose! It’s like magic. I promise. See how pretty and even the hoops are?! I cannot thank Mango enough for sharing her wisdom with the rest of the Internet world. She saved me much angst and consternation. I would like pass that savings on to you by showing you the first hoop skirt that I made, and allowing you to wallow in the atrociousness of it. The first thing you do *not* want to do to make a hoop skirt is buy this pattern: Simplicity 2621. Buy this pattern for the chemise, for the bum roll, or for the corset, but do not buy this pattern for the hoop skirt. The ‘pattern’ (It’s really more of a pattern-less tutorial.) at deathbychutney.com is much better and easier. The other thing that you do *not* want to do to make a hoop skirt is to use boning for the hoops. Even if it is the most expensive, highest quality boning at Joanns, and even if you have a kick-ass coupon for it. I can’t speak for the boning sold at high-end dress making supply stores, but don’t go the plastic coiled boning route. Simplicity says it will work, but let me just show you how well it works:

Pretty sad, isn’t it? All shrinking in on itself. The best possible material to use for your hoops is soaker hose, just like it says at http://www.deathbychutney.com/hoopskirt.htm. It’s also a helluva lot cheaper than 15 yards of crappy boning. What, you haven’t read the tutorial yet? Go! Go now! And when you come back I’ll show you how I made my soaker hose connectors. As you can see here, the only soaker hose available at my local hardware store isn’t one simple tube. That red line down the middle is where the hose is attached to itself on the opposite side. So I wasn’t able to just slit a bit at the end of the hose and tuck it into the other end to make a tube.

Do I cut off a piece of hose about 4 or 5 inches long. Then cut the red strip out of the middle. I tossed the red center and trimmed up each side strip a little bit. Then I shoved each little strip into one end of the hoop hose, and joined the other end of the hoop in the same fashion. I did add a couple of wraps of duck tape at the seam just to make sure everything stayed stable. And it did! Now you have the information to go forth and hoop skirt! I gotta tell you, the sense of accomplishment of getting that thing right after that first horrible skirt was overwhelming. Deathbychutney’s tutorial really saved my day and my sanity!

When we last saw our hero, she had finished sewing her Faire-going chemise, and was ready to add a touch of lace to the edges.

With that done, she was ready to move on to making her other undergarments!

I had every intention of making the corset next. But I wanted to get good boning for that project, and would have to wait for it to arrive in the mail before construction could be completed. I did cut out most of the corset fabric, but due to time constraints decided not to finish it for the Medieval Faire. The boning has been acquired, though, so I’ll tell you all about that when I actually sew the garment.

So here I am, chemised, ready for the rest of my costume! Because the neckline was so wide, the chemise kept slipping off my shoulders. So I put my little tube of sock glue to good use! A dab of that on my skin, then pressing the shoulder of the chemise down on the glue did the trick!

Ohohoh, one other note on the chemise. If you are using Simplicity pattern 2621 for your chemise, I would suggest making the facings quite a bit longer than the pattern calls for. You won’t be able to add much to the sides since you’ll run into the arm area, but adding a couple of inches to the front and the back would help keep them tucked in neatly.

As you can see I put my shoes on first, as I knew my feet would soon be hard for me to reach. On faire shoes: I spent a lot of time tracking down the most perfect medieval shoes, searching thrift stores far and wide. I ended up with a pair that I was *very* happy with the looks of, but they were a bit pinchy in the toe. I used a wonderful idea found on YouTube to stretch them out: Mix one part isopropyl alcohol with three parts water. Spray this on the leather shoes until well moistened, and wear the shoes until they are dry.

The problem came to be that with all of that effort, the shoes were negligible. You see, once I got my big long skirt on, my shoes never showed. Not once. Ok, well once when my friend Kelly asked what kind of shoes I was wearing. She agreed that they were perfect! And for $3.50 I’m not complaining, especially since they didn’t hurt my feet at all even after wearing them tromping around the fairgrounds all day long. But next time, I won’t be quite so picky about what shoes I’m wearing.