After seeing the post on The American Duchess blog about Late 18th Century Skirt Supports - The Unorthodox Edition, I decided to have a wack at it and see what I came up with. I started by trying to rework the atrocious bum pad that i had thrown together one night so here is the old version.
Wonky, ill fitting and lopsided. Blah.. And here is the newest version.
The new one is certainly much better than the last in my opinion but not quite there yet. I happen to like a lot of puff in my skirt. When i first started I had stuffed this thing fuller than a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. And I downgraded it to where it is now. My first attempt stuck straight out from the back of Clio (my dress-form) so out came half the stuffing inside.
Next I tried the "puffer". "This ugly thing works wonders." as Lauren Reeser from American Duchess says. And she's right even with my changes, due to the fact that I couldn't get my fabric to gather at the time. I ended up pleating it. With a large box pleat in the back and regular pleats around the sides. I will be revisiting this piece to make it work better and add even more poof than it already does.
And this is what it looks like under the Petticoats.
That pile of material on the floor is what came out of the old Bum Pad.
And we lose a lil fluff with the second petticoat.
Now I can't tell how fluffy this will look just yet. I need to add the pickups into the skirt and add closures to the front of the dress. Which will nip in the waist and hopefully puff up the back.
What I loved about these projects is that I was able to put them together in practically no time at all. My sincere thanks to The Duchess for the inspiration for these projects. They were fun and extremely helpful. ;)
