Beginner questions

[gem]

I'm with Raevyn; all my peasant skirts have elastic waists. I just find them more comfortable and easier to deal with than drawstrings or fussing with closures. In fact, the blue skirt I posted earlier even has the waistband sewn on backwards (raw edges to the outside)! But you can't tell b/c you never see it under my bodice.

I make my basic skirts from a pattern similar to the McCall's pattern already mentioned, with gored panels and a waistband... but given that you're not entirely sure the pattern will fit you, I think you'll have an easier time with Lady K's method--basically just taking your yardage of fabric and sewing it into a tube. (Here's a picture of a skirt I made with that method.) And here is a great tutorial on exactly how to do it:

http://www.reddawn.net/costume/skirt.htm

As for fabric, I've already expressed my love for the cotton you're planning to use. Linen is absolutely my alltime favorite fabric to work with, but I do reserve it for my more historically accurate pieces because it's more expensive... and also b/c I just like the look of the cotton peasant skirts for Fairwear! I don't find the cotton (or even poly/cotton) skirts to be unbearably hot, even when it's in the 90s with 90% humidity (which is very common here at KCRF!).

[raevyncait]

Gem, Red Dawn's is the pattern I used for my first skirts, however I've discovered that to have the 4 or 5 yeards around the hem that I like for fullness, I end up with too much bulk at the waist.  I AM, however, going back to some of those and taking darts out of the waist to get rid of some of that bulk.

[JMSATL]

I would LOVE to use linen, and it is by no means out of the picture. I just can't find any that I like and have defaulted to cotton. (My JoAnns apparently doesn't have a very good selection. Very large, but very basic.) The Hobby Lobby where I found the cotton was moving, though, so maybe their linen was in boxes. Their move was supposed to be finished over the weekend, so I'm heading out there tonight to get the fabric along with elastic or whatever waist fastener I like/can find/decide to go with. I've really got to get started on the project so that if I fail horribly, I have time to go to plan B. Getting the length right is probably going to be the most difficult part. I'm not wearing hoops or a farthingale, so should it measure from waist to floor or shorter?

Darts are angles of fabric cut out to make it less bulky, right?

Gem, that outfit is incredibly beautiful in your last post. I adore the cream color! Did you make it all, including the chemise? I wasn't sure of the term for what I'm trying to do, but thank you for mentioning that it's a "tube" skirt. I had purchased a "three panel skirt" from Medieval Collectables last year for my costume then, and the fit is what I'm shooting for now, but I didn't know what to call it.

[isabelladangelo]

Try fabric dot com and Joanns dot com.  I rarely buy from the store anymore (unless I have coupons).   You can get linen at fabric dot com easily.  Sign up for their emails as they often announce sales and give out coupons.  Also, ebay ebay ebay.   In another thread, I posted my "under $20" Norse outfit.  It's completely linen.   I bought all the linen on ebay for $5 a piece.  Each piece I bought was anywhere from 3 to 5 yards.  Don't rely on your local stores.  The internet is great for buying as well.  :-)

[gem]

I buy all my linen from www.fabrics-store.com If you are thinking of using linen, you'll want to make sure you prep the fabric really well (hot wash/hot dry at least three times to pre-shrink the heck out of it, and to make it softer and less wrinkle-prone). You also want to pre-shrink your cotton, of course, but one cycle of wash/dry will be plenty.

If you're investing in linen, though, I would want to sort of "honor" the fabric and go ahead and either make a gored skirt (to reduce bulk at the waist like Raevyn mentions) or cartridge pleat it to a waistband (like my cream one). That sounds intimidating, but it's actually RIDICULOUSLY easy, although *very* time consuming. (Cartridge pleating is basically a way of making very even gathers.) Linen weighs considerably more than comparable cotton (ie, my midweight linen skirts are all heavier than my cotton broadcloth skirts, even tho' they use the same amount of fabric), so you'll definitely want to keep that in mind/deal with that.

Darts are folds of fabric that you sew down to shape a garment more closely to your body. (They're not period, but you will find them in tons of modern mundane clothing and even more mundane sewing.) Here's a good diagram (I actually don't know what this is a diagram of, but it has good images of darts!). You're looking at half a bodice pattern. Center front is to the right; the armhole (armscye) is on the left. See those triangles? Those are bust darts (like you'd find on a fitted blouse). You fold the wide ends of the triangle together and sew along the fold. It will remove fullness in that area and make the garment fit more closely.

Gores are triangles of fabric added (usually to a hem) to give something more fullness OR the triangular sections of a whole skirt. A "gored skirt" pattern would look similar to this: http://www.tudorlinks.com/treasury/freepatterns/w191214cdgoreskirtlayout.jpeg It gives you a lot of fullness at the hem (which you want) without all the fullness at the waist (which you don't).  This is a diagram of a chemise, but you can see the triangular gores that have been added at the hemline to make a straight garment wider at the bottom.

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Gem, that outfit is incredibly beautiful in your last post. I adore the cream color! Did you make it all, including the chemise?

Thanks! I made the bodice and the skirt; I was lucky enough to find that beautiful chemise (which is a gorgeous textured rayon) at my fair! My whole family decided we needed garb from the movie "Much Ado About Nothing," so I made white-on-white ensembles for everyone! That was my first cartridge-pleated skirt. It's made from Fabrics-store.com's cotton-linen blend, which is more opaque than ivory cotton, but much lighter than 100% linen. It's 4 yards of fabric (no seams, just the whole 4 yards  ) cartridge-pleated to a waistband. For the waistband, I measured my waist + 2". It closes with hooks & eyes.