Adding Volume to Petticoats

I was planning on finishing my posts about how I made my Elsa dress from Frozen Fever, but I hit a huge writer’s block. So, today I will talk about how I added volume to the petticoats I bought off amazon!

Over a year ago, I wanted a petticoat to go under a 1950’s style skirt. I wanted to make the petticoat from scratch, but I ended up buying a white organza petticoat from amazon. When I got it in the mail, it didn’t have the volume I wanted. So, I added some tulle in between the layers of the petticoat. I talked about this on Tumblr (Here and here) over a year ago, but I never talked about it here.

A few months ago, I realized I needed a long, black petticoat to go under some dresses/skirts I have and want to make in the future. Again, I thought about making the petticoat from scratch, but at that time I was taking care of an ill family member so I didn’t have time to make one from scratch. After remembering how well my white petticoat turned out, I decided to buy another petticoat off amazon and use the same process of adding tulle between the layers of the petticoat to add volume.

The petticoat I bought is made out of two main fabrics, organza and a knit, and is very comfortable to wear. It is not very full like another long petticoat I have (And do not have photos of for comparison) but for the dresses and skirts I want to use the petticoat with it will be full enough. After I add a layer of tulle to the bottom of it of course! XD

Here’s what it looked like after I took it out of the package…

As you can see, it’s not very full.

When I worked on my first petticoat, I used tulle I found at the local fabric store. The tulle came on a 100 yard spool and worked well, but it was soft and wasn’t very stiff. Since my black petticoat would need to support more fabric from longer skirts, I wanted to use a stiffer tulle.

After searching local fabric stores, I found and bought six yards of black tulle at the same fabric store I bought the tulle for my first petticoat at. After I bought the tulle and brought it home, I measured the length of the bottom layer of the petticoat and cut strips of the tulle that length. Then, I began to sew.

I don’t have photos of my sewing process, but it took a while because I hand gathered and sewed the tulle onto the petticoat. After a while, the sewing hurt my hand because I was doing a lot of other hand sewing and knitting at the time, but I was able to finish the petticoat in a week.

Once it was done, the petticoat looked like this…

The petticoat is not super full or large, but it is the fullness I wanted it to be. 🙂

I anticipated sewing several layers of tulle to the petticoat, but I only sewed one layer tulle onto the bottom layer of the petticoat. I was not expecting how full the one layer of tulle would make the petticoat, so I have a few yards of tulle left waiting for me to find another use for it. 🙂

Well, that’s all I have to talk about the petticoats. Thank you for reading!