Shocking Pink

At the sole estate sale last Saturday, I found two more Schiapparelli lingerie bags for $.50 each, bringing me to a total of three. All different designs! I enjoy stashing my nylons in them for much the same reason I enjoy tying sheet sets in the linen closet together with satin ribbon. It's a small touch of elegance in my not-very-elegant life.

Since the pickings were slim, estate sale-wise, and it was right near there, I subsequently stopped into my favorite thrift store. Which, unusually, had a couple of offerings in its fabric selection that I snapped up. About eight yards of silk charmeuse (hot pink) and six of silk organza (magenta), both for a dollar a yard. Not my usual colorway, but for that price you don't walk away. And before I even got home I'd figured out what I was going to make from (some of) it. I'd been wanting to do a silk organza petticoat to show the class I'm going to be teaching the difference between that and nylon net....

I cut out the strips and started sewing last night. The organza turned out to be six and a half yards long and thirty-five inches across, which makes me wonder just what the previous owner needed a six and a half yard by ten inch strip of silk organza for. ^_^;; I've got the bottom three tiers done up into circles, and the bottom one (the better part of eighteen yards) hemmed on one side. Took forever. I need to watch YouTube videos on hemming feet, because I was having problems with using mine and gave up eventually.

It amuses me to be a 2012 girl making a 1950s petticoat on a 1931 sewing machine.

Learning By Doing

Watched a YouTube vid on using a rolled hem foot, then just sat down and started sewing. Kept going through both sides of all three tiers of the magenta petticoat, and I think I may now have a decent grasp on how to use the foot.

I will say, one advantage to the net petticoats is that they don't need all this hemming! On the other hand, the net pettis do get ribbon finishes (because I am persnickety), so hemming is probably actually the quicker option.

Tomorrow I'll experiment with the ruffler foot (which I can't use on the netting; it's too fine to work right with the ruffler) and hopefully get the tiers gathered and pinned, maybe sewn as well, but we'll see.