Knee-length Petticoat Tutorial

This tutorial is for a knee length petticoat worn with this dress.

You can buy one here.

This is quite an easy design of petticoat to make, you will need:

• a rectangle piece of cotton measuring ‘measurement between waist and knee’ times ‘hip measurement + 3″ ease’.  I used left over material from this dress.
• 1.5 X ‘hip measurement’ of tulle netting. – This is for 2 layers of tulle, for more you’ll need layers you’ll need the same again for each pair of layers.
• 6 x ‘hip measurement’ of bias binding ribbon in a matching colour. – Again for two layers of tulle.
• a piece of 1/2″ elastic. To measure I took the elastic and pulled it tightly around my waist and cut to fit.

Make the lining.

• Cut out the pattern piece – No need to add seam allowance as this is included in the measurements above.
• Fold in half. 
• Sew along open edge measuring from waist to knee.

Hem bottom edge

• I’ve used a double-fold hem as described here, this keeps all the raw edges inside the hem.

Creating the waist band

•  Again I use a double-fold hem, this time make sure the waistband is at least 3/4″ wide.
• Make sure to leave about 2″ of the waist band open to feed the elastic through.

Tulle layers

Do this for each layer of tulle you want on the petticoat.

• Get the piece of tulle and fold twice along the length and cut along the folded edges. You should have 4 pieces of tulle measuring ‘1.5 X hip measurement’ by ‘1/4 of tulle width’
• Sew 2 pieces of tulle together so you have a tube measuring ‘3 X ‘hip measurement’.

Edging the tulle in ribbon

Do this for each layer of tulle you want on the petticoat.

• The binding will be folded so the raw edges are in the middle. 
• Fold the binding in half and press.
• Line up the pressed line with the edge of the tulle, enclosing the edge in the binding and pin in place
• Sew in place

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Attaching the tulle layers to the lining

• Pin all the layer together and baste together.
• Pull one of the threads and gather evenly until the tulle is the same circumference as the lining. Use this tutorial here if you are unfamiliar with the technique.
• pin the gathered tulle to the lining at 7″ below the waist.
• Sew in place using a zip-zag stitch.

Putting in the elastic 

• attach a safety pin to each end of the elastic.
• Use the safety pin to push the elastic though the waistband.
• Make sure to pin the other end to the lining.
• Once all the way through unpin the safety pins and sew ends of elastic together.
• Sew the gap in the waistband closed.

And now you have a completed petticoat.