Rose Tyler’s Idiot’s Lantern Dress- The Remade Underskirt

Since I’m remaking the Rose Tyler Idiot’s Lantern dress, I thought it would be nice to make a new underskirt to go with the new dress. The old underskirt is fine and still usable, but my sewing skills have improved since then and after finding new information about the underskirt used for the dressed used in the episode, I decided to remake it.

The original underskirt wasn’t something I’m very proud of when I made it. It was made the night before the convention I was supposed to wear it to so it really wasn’t the best sewing I ever did and I knew it. But I needed an underskirt as soon as possible and as long as the skirt didn’t fall apart while I wore it I didn’t mind the rushed sewing job. It served it’s purpose and three years later it’s still alive, in great shape, and can be worn if I chose. Because it’s lasted this long than I thought it would, I’m not so hard on myself for rushing to finish the skirt.

Here’s what the old underskirt looks like…

Since then I’ve continued to do research on the dress and I found a quote of an interview with Louise Page, the costume designer for seasons 2-4 of Doctor Who at the Bad Wolf Closet on Tumblr. (The interview can also be found on livejournal, but the part I’m talking about can be easily located on the Tumblr page) In the quote, she says…

The petticoat was made from pink acetate satin with layers of net petticoats in a very pale pink with layers of net frills.

I could (And did) find acetate for sale online, but I already had some pink polyester satin in my fabric stash so I used it for my underskirt instead. I also bought a 100+ yards spool of white netting at Hobby Lobby last year that I never used that would work well for the skirt.

I didn’t use a pattern for the skirt, but I did use the skirt for Butterick’s pattern number 4443 as a reference.

Here’s what the completed skirt looks like…

After finishing the skirt, I realized the fabric is… um… not really great. Although I knew this before I cut the fabric, but after I finished the skirt the fabric pulled itself apart, causing my french seams to be exposed and the fabric to start to fray. I was able to fix it and prevent the fabric from fraying further, but I’m still not very pleased with the fabric. I thought about remaking the skirt, but I was able to stabilize it and so far I haven’t had any fabric problems since. I hope it stays that way.

Now that the underskirt is done (And hopefully won’t fall apart in the future) I can move onto the main dress! Which means I’ll need to dye more fabric. Yuck.