New Pattern for Sale: Bustle Pad or Pillow

I have a new sewing pattern for sale!

It's a full-size pattern that includes three different styles of bustle pad, so you can get exactly the right amount of lift for your skirts.  I've talked before on this blog about the difference a bustle pad can make in your overall look.  You can really take a costume to the next level with a bustle pad.  And now you don't have to worry about how to make one!

All of these are comfortable to wear and to sit in.  I love my bustle pillow, not only cause it makes me look good, but also because it acts as a lumbar cushion when I'm sitting!  I wear the style on the lower right, the Large Bustle, but now that I've developed the tiered bustle I might have to try that one out.  

So, pop on over and buy yourself a pattern! 

(P.S.  - Don't forget my patterns for Military Spats and Tie-on Bustle Skirt!)

Tutorial: How to Make a Bustle Skirt from a Window Panel

I'm a big fan of getting fabric for costume pieces from places other than the fabric store.  The main thing I look for at thrift stores are things to use as fabric.  Sheets are one of my favorites.  In the past I haven't really  found a lot of awesome window treatments to use.  But on a recent trip to Goodwill I got a couple really nice window panels.  The one I'm going to show you today is even 70% silk.  And it cost me $2.99.

In deciding what to make with this awesome piece of fabric I considered that it was a nice large piece of uninterrupted fabric.  Unlike cutting up a prom dress for fabric I didn't have to worry about seams or anything.  I also wanted to use as close to 100% of the fabric for one project, for maximum impact.  So I decided to make a long bustle skirt.

Materials:
One full-length window panel.
Plastic Drapery rings - I  used 5 for this skirt, so one small package should get you a couple of bustles.
Thin ribbon, probably needs to be smaller than 1/2" wide and of coordinating color with your fabric in case it gets seen due to passing breeze.
Thread

I didn't take a "before" picture, but this is the curtain and the
lining, showing where I cut them apart.

This project borrows a lot from one of the patterns that I sell, my Tie-on Bustle Skirt.  Because I'm looking to sell this bustle, I went with a tie-on waist to fit pretty much anyone.  If I was making it for myself, I would probably make a waistband to my measurement and put a button closure on it.  The bustling technique I use in this tutorial is something of an experiment for me, and is not the same as what is used in my pattern.  So this is a free tutorial with some similarities to the pattern I have for sale, but also some significant differences.  Just in case you're wondering.

The first thing I did was to cut the fabric off of the lining.  I just cut inside the seams attaching the two pieces of fabric.  I could have tried to keep the side seams intact, but I didn't want any of the white lining to remain, so I cut it all off.  I kept hem at the bottom of the panel because it looked nice and neat.  I usually make my bustles with a rounded edge, but I left this square to preserve the nicely finished hem.  I then cut enough off the top for my waist tie.  I cut two strips off the top that were both 3" wide.  If you're making a waistband instead of a tie, you might only have to cut one strip.  I used my narrow hem foot to make a tiny narrow hem along the edges.  If you don't have a narrow hem foot, you can just turn the edge under and under again.  You might want to make your band thicker to allow for this.

You can see the zigzagged top edge and hemmed side.

Then I hemmed all the way down the sides of my panel, pressing the fabric under by about 1/4" and then again 1/4" to hide the raw edge.  I could have used the narrow hem foot again, but it sometimes leaves strings and this is a very fray-able fabric.  For the top edge where it will attach to the waistband, I pinked it and then did a zig-zag stitch over it.

The next step is to gather the top of the panel.  To do this, just run two lines of a large basting stitch along the top and pull the threads to gather the fabric.  You can choose how much to gather based on how wide you want the finished bustle to be.  Because my window panel is slightly smaller than standard 45" fabric, I didn't gather it all that much.  Hold it up to your backside or a dressform to get an idea how big you want it.

New Pattern for Sale: Tie-on Bustle

I'm very excited to announce that I have a new sewing pattern for sale. It's for a Tie-on Bustle overskirt.





It's a quick and easy addition to any outfit that adds a lot of steampunk style. It's also a pretty simple pattern, with step-by-step instructions and photos. So it would be good for someone just starting to sew.

It can be purchased here, at my etsy shop.

Also, let me sneak in a reminder about my Steampunk Military Spats pattern. It's very popular.

I have another tutorial coming to this blog soon, and the next part of the corsetmaking series. One thing at a time...

How to Bustle a Skirt

Since I made my Burda 7880 dress, I've had several people ask for help with how to bustle the overskirt. The pattern instructions are not very good, and this part is especially mysterious. In fact, I have no idea what they actually mean for you to do. But I'll share what I did.

You can also use this technique to make your own bustle from scratch or to bustle an existing skirt. The example overskirt is just a huge rectangle in the back, with two layers of fabric. The outside is solid purple and the inside is print.

Materials:

Skirt to bustle
Underskirt or other garment you will wear under the bustle skirt
at least 1 yd drapery ring tape (you can find this in the drapery section of your fabric store) or 15 loose plastic drapery rings
6 large jewelry clasps or 6 lengths of strong ribbon or cord

Instructions:

1. The first step is to sew three drapery rings onto the waistband of your underskirt. On the Burda pattern the placement of these rings is marked with an X, but you can just evenly space three rings. If you have loose drapery rings, you will have to sew them on by hand.



2. Then a length of drapery tape is attached to the underside of the overskirt at six points. Each of these sections has two rings, although you could attach more. You can see the general placement of the rings. Essentially there are two lengths of tape for each ring attached to the waistband. It's important that you sew through both layers of the overskirt when attaching these rings, whether you do so by machine or are hand attaching individual rings.



3. This is where the pattern instructions get really iffy. The next step is to gather the rings of each length of tape together, so you have six gathered points. I used what I had on hand, which was 6 large jewelry clasps, which worked rather well. I've since seen similar bustling techniques done with ribbon. So you can use ribbon or cord. Tie it through the rings and knot it securely.



You can see that if there was a third ring in between these two, it might work even better, but this was the spacing on my ring tape.

4. Now all you have to do is attach each clasp or ribbon to the rings at the waist. Each ring at the waist is attached to the two overskirt rings that line up with it. If you're using ribbon, again, tie securely. You don't want your bustle falling down. (I find it easiest to attach the overskirt to the underskirt before putting it on. Otherwise you will need help to attach them. I just leave them on the hanger together.)





And here's what the bustling looks like from the outside:



And here it is being worn over a bustle pad. (If you need to know how to make a bustle pad, see this post.)





I want to experiment more with this technique and try using ribbons and attaching the overskirt to its own waistband. But that has to wait either until someone pays me to make them one, or until I can afford enough fabric for a bustle.

How to Make a Bustle Pad and Why You Should

So back when I first started thinking about this steampunk thing, I remember considering the idea of bustles. I saw the various ways to make a bustle from wire. 'Too much trouble,' I thought, 'And too difficult to sit in.' So I settled for trying to create a bustle effect with flounces and floofs of fabric.

A while back I bought and downloaded this pattern, which includes a pattern for a bustle pad or pillow. So finally, before my last event, I decided to try the bustle pad and see if I liked the effect.

From sewing

From sewing

I did. Having an actual bustle extension changes your shape, adds Victorian authenticity, and makes those floofs pop. I thought my ass was already big enough. Turns out I was wrong. So what's under that skirt?

This:

From sewing

From sewing

It's construction is pretty simple. The bottom, as you can see in the second picture, is a half-oval. The front and back are two trapezoids, one bigger than the other. The smaller trapezoid is the back, the side against your body. The larger trapezoid is gathered along the top (smaller) edge so that it is the same width as the smaller trapezoid. The bottom of the large piece is the same length as the curve of the half-oval. Right sides together the large side of the front is sewn to the curve of the half-oval. The straight side of the half-oval is sewn to the larger side of the smaller trapezoid, and the sides of the two trapezoids are sewn together, leaving the top open. The pillow is stuffed with stuffing and then a waistband is added to the top to seal it up.

I made a bad Paint drawing of the pieces for the pillow. These are just free-drawn. They are not to any exact scale and aren't a real pattern, but a visual aid to help you make your own and understand what I'm describing above.

From sewing

As for the size of the pillow, that depends on your size and your build. If you're very curvy already, like me, you'll want a bigger bustle so it looks proportionate on you. If you're a flatter shape, that's probably going to look a little weird on you, so you'll want a smaller bustle. The width of my back piece at the bottom is 14" without seam allowance. At the top it is 10." The bottom of the front piece is 18". The height is around 9", including the waistband. You want it to be smaller than the width of your behind and you ideally want it to rest on top of your own curves. As for stuffing, you can probably tell mine is a little under-stuffed. I didn't know how it would look, and I was afraid of having a horribly overstuffed thing coming out of my back. And it's deflated a bit from having been worn to two events and sat on etc. So you may want to add more stuffing than you think you should, knowing it will compress some.

As for the waistband, I just made one with two buttons on it to button around my waist. It fits snugly when I put it on, but after I add my corset over the top, my waist shrinks a few inches and the waistband sags a bit. To avoid this, you may want to use elastic or a drawstring in your waistband to make sure your bustle stays where you want it. As for comfort, I've found wearing this to be really comfortable. I'm not aware of it feeling different than wearing my outfit normally until I sit down. And then it just squishes into the back of your chair like the rest of your skirts. You don't end up sitting on it, since it's on top of your behind. It's just a little more volume to take into account when sitting down. It kinda makes a good lumbar pillow, too, if it squishes just right.

One final note. At Aggiecon last weekend, one of the vendors (not in costume) complimented me on wearing a bustle as "it's something people leave out". I told her it was a bustle pillow and lifted up my overskirt to show her. She then spent a few minutes explaining to me how my bustle pad was wrong and how it should be in a different place and be shaped differently, etc. It sounded like she was describing a bum roll, which is the wrong period, but I just smiled and nodded and walked away as soon as I could. This kind of nitpicking on historical accuracy is so annoying. And it's not very steampunk (although I don't believe the lady in question was a steampunk). If the effect it produces under my skirts looks good (and it obviously did or she wouldn't have stopped me to compliment me), then I don't care if this is not the way it should look or not.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. I hope this helps someone achieve the look they're going for.

EDIT: If you would prefer to work from a pattern, or want a different style/size of bustle pad, I now offer a downloadable pattern for three styles of bustle pad.

How I made my bustle skirt

A year ago I was looking at beautiful Victorian dresses online and wishing I could afford to have someone make one for me. I never imagined that I would ever be making one myself. Creating a full Victorian costume is a goal of mine. I'd like to do that in the next year. But I started small and made myself a bustled overskirt.

I had an idea of what I wanted: a draped front and a cascading bustle of fabric in the back. I looked at various online resources, like this one and this one. But they weren't exactly what I had in mind, so I looked at commercial patterns for sale.

I did spend a lot of time at Truly Victorian studying their patterns. Although their stuff is awesome, I just didn't see exactly what I had in mind. Their patterns are authentic, and I actually wanted something simpler, sleeker than actual Victorian designs. Finally, I found this Burda pattern and it is very close the the style of dress I eventually want to make. Plus, the draped overskirt is exactly what I wanted. The pattern is out of print, but available to download, so I bought it, downloaded it, and printed it. I've never used a downloaded pattern, and the process of laying out the sheets in the right order, gluing them together, and finding the pieces I wanted took a while. Tissue paper would be easier.

But once I looked more closely at the pattern, I was disappointed with the back of the overskirt. It's really just plain skirt with some vertical pleats over a padded bum roll. I wanted something more like the bustle on this dress. I already owned that pattern, having picked it up in a $0.99 sale. The actual dress looks more 18th century than 19th century to me, but the bustle is very easy to make and buttons on to a waistband.

So I set out to make a skirt with the front of the Burda pattern and the back of the McCall pattern. For someone who only learned to use a sewing machine about 5 months before, this was a pretty big deal. The front was pretty easy, and the bustle was fairly easy, but putting them together was a little tricky.

Because I think the technique on the bustle would be useful to some people, I'm going to try to describe the process. There are two layers of fabric, your desired show fabric, and a lining. I used home decor fabric in a sateen stripe. It's a good idea to use pretty heavy fabric to get it to drape correctly. The underside of the bustle is an elongated trapezoid slightly less wide than your desired width of the bustle. The actual bustle is much larger and is cut in two long strips almost as wide as the fabric and then sewed together in the middle. Along the sides of the bustle there are three large pleats that are folded and then the whole thing is sewn to the underside piece, right sides together. So you have the bustle as a large piece of fabric sewn to a much smaller piece, leaving the fabric loose and billowy. You then tack the bustle to the lining in three or four places, to form the flounces however you want.

I apologize for not having step by step pictures to illustrate the process, but I made this in November, before I started this blog. I tried to draw an MSPaint illustration, but really, you don't want to see that. Hopefully you can get a sense of what I mean from the finished product.

From sewing

From sewing

From sewing

From sewing

As for attaching the two halves, I only finished that recently. For Dickens on the Strand, my bustle was held on with safety pins. But I finally attached the bustle on one side of the waistband and created a series of button holes in the waistband to attached the bustle firmly to the skirt.

If I had it to over, I would have made the bustle panel wider and used a stiffer material for the under layer. I have since improved the look with my new favorite fabric trick: starch. After starching the under layer and the bustle itself, it looks better when worn.