How to sew a “Farthingale” out of a bed sheet

[Orphena]

To be clear – this is not a historic method, but it DOES provide the correct shape, and hold your skirts out. This is not intended to be seen, it is function, not fashion! You can make one for between $20 and $30, with a few hours of work – no cutting required, only straight seams.

Supplies you will need.
1.   A Bed Sheet – I usually go for a Queen or King sized sheet – but a double may work just as well. 2nd hand stores are great for these. Read the instructions through, and then decide what works for you.   

2.   Soft plastic hose – often in the plumbing section of a hardware store – it may be used for dishwashers. It should be flexible, like a garden hose. I usually get about an inch in diameter, but you can use something close. Just adapt your channels for whatever size you get. 2 inches is too bulky, however, and less than 1/2 an inch will not provide enough stiffness. You can substitute anything else you find at the hardware store that you think will work. You want it to have enough stiffness to hold a shape, but enough flexibility that it bends without kinking. You need enough for 2 rings of your farthingale. (Do NOT use a hula hoop – been there once, and let's just say the biggest issue was using the port a potty.)


3.   Rope – I prefer a more fabric style of rope – I get it at the fabric store. (But I'm Canadian, so no idea if your local JoAnn's carries it or not). Again, I look for a diameter of 1/2 inch to an inch. This is a soft, flexible rope – I wouldn't use it to tie off a boat, or make a clothes line. The one I get seems to be cotton tightly woven over a soft "stuffing". You need enough for 3 – 5 rings of your farthingale. (How many rings you need is dependant on your height, and how close together you put them). A nice soft cotton rope is nicer to sit on than the hose.
   
4.   Ruler, Pencil, Duct tape


Instructions
Take your sheet, and lay it on the floor or table, with the long edges at the top and bottom. I find it easier to mark all my measurements when it is flat, rather than sewing up the ends into a skirt – but you can do it both ways. I leave the sheet "hems" in place.

Take your hose, and fold the very bottom edge of the sheet over it, to get an accurate sense of how much room it takes up. Mark that spot, then add about ¼ or a ½ inch (for wiggle room), and draw a line that extends all the way from one short edge to the other, parallel with the bottom edge. This is a channel for your bottom hoop.

From that line, measure up about 5 inches, and draw another line, parallel to the first. Keep your lines as straight as possible. Take your hose, put it above that new line, fold the fabric over it so that the fabric meets, and mark the spot, adding a bit of wiggle room as you did before. Without that extra ¼ - ½ inch, it is difficult to get the hose into the channels. Draw another line.

Measure up about 5 inches, draw another line, take your ROPE, put it above that new line, fold the fabric over it so that the fabric meets, and mark the spot, adding a bit of wiggle room as you did before. Draw another line. Each channel (other than the bottom one) gets 2 lines – a top and bottom. Repeat for additional channels of rope. I am 6 feet tall, so I like to do about 4 channels for rope, and 2 for the hose.

Your sheet should look like this right now (not exactly to scale). How much "extra" you have on top depends on what size sheet you used. Don't worry about the extra for now.

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Go back and check your measurements. Pin about 4 inches of channel together, and make sure that your rope and hose will slide through it. Trust me on this!

Sew the short edges to each other to make your sheet into a tube.

Using your lines as a guideline, sew the channels. Fold the lowest edge up to meet the first line you drew, and stitch. Leave an opening about 6 inches long somewhere along that line – this is to serve as the spot where your hose / rope is going to be fed into it's channel. The rest of the channels are made by creating tucks in the fabric. Keep all the "channels" on the same side. Fold the fabric so that the lower line meets the upper line, and stitch, each time leaving a spot about 6 inches long open. I try to keep my "open spots" staggered, so they are not all in a line.

Measure for the waist line – I keep the bottom channel about ankle height, and go to my natural waist. Fold the excess fabric over on the side that does not have the channels, and make one last channel for a ribbon to pass through. This will be your drawstring waist. My favourite farthingale actually has 2 drawstring waist channels -  a little more width, a little more security. I leave the excess fabric in place (hanging over the outside), as it helps to hide the hoops a bit - All your channels will be on the inside of the skirt.

Put on a good movie, and start threading. The hose goes in the bottom 2 hoops to create a more solid foundation. For the rope, I find it easiest to use strong thread (upholstery) to sew the end closed (or the stuffing explodes the rope outward), and then tie that thread securely to a zip tie – use the bulky end that we usually nip off to thread through, (or tape it to dowelling), and go nice and slowly. Take extra care when feeding the end of the rope into the channel, and extra care at the one vertical seam. 

Adjust the length of your hose and rope to create the shape you want. I suggest keeping the bottom 2 hoops the same diameter, and each one higher gets a little narrower. I've tried doing the math on this process, but I suck at math, and I usually trust my eye better. I usually keep the hose as long as possible – so that there is no puckering in the bottom hoops, and I get the maximum width. Use duct tape to secure the ends of your hoops together (both the rope and the hose), and make sure the ends won't pop out of the channel. I use safety pins with the thought that I can remove the hoops – but I've only done that once. Thread a ribbon through the top channel for the drawstring waist, and you are done. 

BTW – you can adjust this farthingale into a more Victorian line by attaching tapes to the inside, and pulling the sides in. The tapes should sit behind your legs, and you will have a more oval shaped foundation, with a flatter front. Play with the placement of the tapes to achieve the correct shape. 

[LadyFae]

Thanks!