Elizabethan gown hemming basics

Six Days Away!!!!

I am officially 6 days away from the Minnesota Renaissance Festival Trip. I'm afraid that finishing the dress cut into my blogging time. I can sew ten times faster if I'm not taking pictures of each step. Thus, I missed the tutorial on how to make a partlet and the under sleeves. I will do my best to make another set after the fair and put on the information; however the Lynn McMaster's pattern for the Partlet is really easy to follow.

Here is the finished dress: I still have to tack on the jewelry and hooks and eyes here or there, but for the most part it is done. Yay!!! The billament trim, the sleeve pull backs, the hat pin, and the necklace are both from Sapphire and Sage Jewelry. Rhonda is an absolute marvel and I highly recommend her work.

A Hem.....

As promised here is my short tutorial on hemming. I suppose it all begins with a good friend to help you. It is important that you don't guess on your hemming. Because of the farthingale and especially the bum roll, (see Simplicity Pattern 8881) your dress does not hang the same way that a normal dress hangs. Thus it is important for you to actually put on the dress (If you are the one wearing it) and have the hem figured for your body.

The Pitfalls:

Too low a hem: There is a tendency for people who make beautiful renaissance dresses to lower the hem to the ground level. Frankly this is how it should be. The Hem should just brush the floor so you glide across like on a cloud. Unfortunately this means that you will pick up every speck of dirt, leaf, branch, blade of grass, wood chip, and dust particle in the fair... not to mention the garbage. To put it simply, if your hem touches the ground at a renaissance fair you will end up with a very dirty skirt.

Too high a hem:There is an old costumer adage. If you are on a stage hem low. If you are on eye level, hem high... but not too high. Those who have ruined a dress due to the pitfall above sometimes over hem and end up with a six inch gap between the ground and their hem. This isn't a good combination either. First of all, you can see your shoes and ANKLES!!!

For the record ankles at this time period are far worse to show than your cleavage. So what's the right hem? I hem to the bottom of the netting on my farthingale. If you have no netting it is about three inches above the ground. From a spectator's standpoint your skirt will have the appearance of brushing the ground, without sweeping up the garbage in the fair.

Hem the underskirt.... then the over skirt: At times you will see this around the fair. This is my worst nightmare. In fact, I'm worried about it on the dress I'm making. However, there comes a time when you just have to trust your hemming buddy. In general you want to hem your over skirt a bit longer than your underskirt. Only by a half inch or so.... unless you are a pirate wench. :)

The Process:

Get Up High: I actually stand on a very sturdy coffee table, but in a pinch I've stood on a step stool as well. This is for the ease of your hemming buddy. It's a pain for them to sit all bunched over and being up high gives them a better perspective on the hem being straight.

What to Wear: You want to wear all of your costume. Not just all of the undergarments, you need to wear your bodice as well. Why? Because each piece of clothing effects how the garment hangs. When you add the bodice, make sure it is where you want the bodice to be. If you have not put in your hooks and eyes yet, have your hemming buddy do a double check to make sure that the skirt waist band is covered by the bodice. You should not see the skirt waist band at all. Also, make sure you wear the shoes that you will wear at the fair!!! This is very important! Every shoe makes you stand a different way.

How to stand: I know this is an odd topic. It's not really. After years in a costume shop, I have learned that where the arms are, makes a difference in the hem. So how do you stand? Stand straight, look forward not down, keep your arms to your side as much as possible.

Don'ts: DO NOT: hold your hands in the singer position. (cupped hands at your waist line) DO NOT: put your hands on your hips. (This will raise your shoulders and cause you to push down the sides of the dress. DO NOT: Bring your hands together in the front or the back. (This tilts the dress and will make the hem off in the front or the back)

Keep your eyes ahead:

Did I mention to look straight ahead? It is really difficult to do this, because this is your baby and you want the hem to lie right. At this point you will just have to trust your buddy. :) Looking down, tilts the dress slightly forward which will make your hem slightly higher in the front than in the back.

Hemming Buddy Duties:

The Hemming Buddy's job is to fold the hem so you have an even line all around the base of the dress. I prefer that my hem is folded under. That way I don't have to remove pins in order to hem the skirt. I always go back and add another row of pins to keep me sane while I am hemming.

Hem the underskirt then the over skirt. I actually flip the over skirt over my neck and shoulders for the underskirt hemming. Yes, this will make the underskirt slightly higher than the over skirt, but as I mentioned above, this is a preferable look.

Iron:

Once you have been pinned and you carefully remove the dress, you can hem your skirt and underskirt. My first duty when I hem is to press around the base of the pinned hem. I do this for two reasons. 1) If a pin falls out, I have a ironed crease to show me where the hem was supposed to go. 2) It is actually easier to hem the dress when you have ironed down the dress edge.

Machine or Hand Stitch:

There is a stitch on the sewing machine that hems your garment. It requires you to sew on the salvage of the hem and the needle jumps over to the folded back dress and picks up one stitch. In general I prefer the machine stitch, but I know that my over skirt is way too heavy for the machine at this point so I'm going to hem the good old fashioned way- by hand.

Remember the bottom of your dress is wider than the top of your dress, thus you will have extra fabric you have to deal with. This is done with neat folds in the hem. You need to be careful making the folds so they don't do damage to the line of the dress. Take your time and experiment.

The hem stitch I use is to pick up the fold of the hem with a needle using a whip stitch, then pick up a 1/2 centimeter piece of the main dress, I jump an 1/2 inch and repeat the process.

When you are finished it is important to iron down your hem again. Here are two pictures. it is obvious when you see the dress which has not been pressed after hemming.

Before:









After:










I will post pictures after the fair.

I still have a few things to do before I leave. I need to finish tacking the jewelry to the bodice. I need to put the hooks and eyes on the bodice and skirt to make sure they stay in place.

That's it! Thanks for visiting. If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer. :)

Cheers!

Katherine