Stützrocke (Support Skirt) or Farthingale from Alcega
April 7, 2003
In looking at the skirt lines in pictures and drawings from this period there definitely does seem to be a smooth bell shape underneath many of the dresses. As you can see in the picture above, from the Milanese Tailor’s book, in this particular instance the bell shape is caused by a skirt which has a cord that wraps around the skirt. The cord seems to lie on top of the skirt, or is laid in from underneath and overcastted on top with a heavy thread, there are no puckers in her skirt around the cording. Here is a detail view
It is interesting that this skirt is obviously meant to be shown, and since it is the same color as the bodice and sleeves, it could be that it is all one piece not just a skirt and bodice that are separate.
The fabric I have in mind for this project is a lightweight bright fuchsia linen, I bought it thinking that it was cranberry, but it really wasn't. I am trying to decide whether I should leave it as is, over dye it with yellow to make a bright orange, or over dye it with maybe a green to make it more of a red. Decisions, decisions….. For a pattern for this underskirt I plan to use the pattern from Alcega. The original calls for 6 ells of silk, 2/3 of an ell wide (5.5 yards of 22 inches wide). According to the translation in Alcega, the finished measurements in inches would be, 49.5 inches long, 107.5 inches wide.
With the front and back cut on the full width, those would each be 22 inches wide, the back side gores add a small amount to the waist, say 3 “ a gore, so with seam allowance of ˝ inch, about a 47 inch finished waist. I am 5’6" tall, and actually with some amount for hem and a channel for a drawstring, I have measured it out and it might need to be shortened a bit, but not too much, also with the hoops in place, that will push out and cause the skirt to shorten as well.
The note in Alcega about the farthingale says that “the name is derived from the willow twig hoops which were covered in cloth and sewed horizontally onto a skirt to make a rigid frame." (Juan de Alcega Tailor’s Pattern Book 1589, page 65, note 39)
This would seem to me that perhaps the stiffening agent was covered and then couched down upon the skirt, possibly giving a smooth look like the image above. I have also seen a similar embroidery technique from a slightly later period where the cord was encased in a strip of fabric the same as the background fabric and couched down on the ground.
Following the example of the lady above, I plan to use a cord or a rope for the stiffening agent, since I need something cheap, collapsible and easy to transport, willow hoops, while very authentic don't quite fit the criteria.
For the cord I have a lightweight jute or hemp rope that I have purchased for this project, it might be too heavy for this use, so I will have to do a test sample using both of the possible methods and see. For the couching or overcastting thread, I would like to use a golden yellow embroidery thread, for a nice contrast.
April 10, 2003
After much thought and consideration (and just plain impatience), I decided to leave the linen as fuchsia or magenta, or whatever bright pink color it is. I am quite sure it isn't a period color, but when it fades it should hopefully fade to a pink color like that in the picture.
I measured out the fabric and I had 3 yards of 55 inch wide material. Since the original pattern called for 22 inch wide fabric, I cut the linen into two 22 inch wide widths of 3 yards long, with a selvage edge on one side, and have a strip from the middle left that’s about 11 inches wide. So with my 6 yards of 22 inch wide fabric I was all set to cut out the fabric and get to work. I reached for my Alcega… And discovered that I had left it at work. Foiled again!
But I still got things accomplished last night. I decided to test out the ropes I had to see which would be the right size and how it would actually look as hoops in the fabric. I have two ropes to chose from, one is a sisal rope in standard rope size and the other is a cotton clothesline rope.
I wanted a good testing platform for the rope, so I cut two 15" sections out of the middle part I had left over and angled the sides so it would be a cone shape similar to the actual one when I get started on it. I sewed it using French seams (or Freedom seams as my friend Carmen calls them now) so I would be sewing over the same kinds of surfaces as in the real one.
I decided to start with the sisal rope first since it looked the best with the fabric folded over it. I took one end of the rope and folded the hem of the tester over it, so the fabric was sort of rolled around the rope. I threaded a standard needle with a double strand of yellow thread and started overcastting it. After a bit I decided that it was better to have two little running stitches between each overcast stitch, as that held the rope better in the fabric. I got almost the bottom edge roped when I had to put it down for the night. The results so far are looking good, the rope holds the edge out nice and stiffly and there doesn't seem to be any issue with the slant in the fabric and everything seems to lie smoothly so far.
Here is a pic of the tester with no rope sewn in yet
April 15, 2004
I got the hem line of rope finished on the tester and put in a second row of rope about 4" above that one to see how sewing a rope in the middle of the fabric would be. It turned out to lay smoothly and held things out well. I pinned it on my ever so handy mannequin, a roll of paper towels, so you could see how it looks. Then I really wanted to see how it would hold up to having fabric over it, so I pinned a doubled over strip of linen fabric (which I have now deemed “the stripped nuisance" due to my inability to bleach it).
I wanted to see if the farthingale would collapse or otherwise be misshapen. As you can see from these pics, it definitely held the skirts out. On left we have the farthingale stands alone, in the middle is farthingale with its new pal, stripped nuisance, on the left we have stripped nuisance alone, without any support underneath.
Here’s a close up of the stitching pattern that holds in the rope. Its two running stitches and one overcast stitch. Although for the actual farthingale, I think I will increase it to possibly 3-4 running stitches between the overcast.
Since I had rescued my copy of Alcega from work on Friday, it was time to mark and then cut out the farthingale.
Here are the steps I took.
For the front and back, using one of the 3 yard 22 inch wide pieces of fabric.
- Fold the fabric in half lengthwise, so now there is selvedge edge and a folded edge.
- Facing the fold and starting from the right side, measured out along the fold, 1 ˝ ells (84 cm + 42cm = 49.5 inches) and drew a line in yellow tailor’s chalk. Then I measured out another 49.5 inches, and made another mark. These two sections are now the Back and Front respectively.
- For the hem on the back and front, marked 1 inch up from the 1 ˝ ell mark on the selvedge edge, then I drew a sloping curve to the folded edge. The end of the curve should be even with the ell mark.
- For the shaping at the top of the front piece, I marked 1 inch down on folded side, and then on selvedge side made a mark 2" down and then a mark 1 ˝" in from selvedge edge along ell line. Then it was time to connect the dots, with a curving line towards the fold.
- For the shaping at the top of the back piece, measure down on fold edge 1", draw curving line from selvedge to mark.
For the side gores, using my second section of 3 yard 22 inch wide piece of fabric.
- Folded fabric along the width, so the selvedges are together. The length of the folded piece should be 49.5 inches long. The fold side is to the right, the ends side is to the left.
- On the fold side mark 3 ˝" up from bottom on fold, and then from that mark, measure up another 2" and mark.
- On cut end, measure 3" down from top, mark, then measure another 4" down and mark.
- Connect the dots.
Sorry the drawings aren't the best, I did them by hand not having Photoshop and a drawing pad to work with.
I cut it out and laid it out on the carpet to see how it would go together. The directions say that no two bias edges can go together, so the layout looked like this. For a cute pic of my cat being an EVER so helpful assistant, click here.
The bias edges on the side front gores are sewn to the sides of the front piece, the same with the back gores. That leaves the straight edges of the front and back gores to be sewn together. This way you have straight grain on the four corners of the body, front, sides and back, and bias on the four diagonal corners.
So, after I had cut it all out and sewn the front sections and back sections together, but not fortunately sewn the side seams or done any seam finishing, I decided to try it on for size. I pinned the side seams together and tried it on, and after nearly tripping over the extra length, I realized this simple fact: 102 inches is a lot of skirt. As in Whoa baby, with hoops in will I fit through door frames?" Which is not a good thought to have when you are trying for middle class merchant and actually having to do real work.
I measured around the bottom of the skirt and made a circle of rope the same length and stood in the middle. I decided that it was WAAAY too big. So I shortened the rope until the circle was smaller, and then I taped the circle together and made sure that I could still walk in it, by hitching it up to my knees and lunging out with a big step. The size I came up with was 71 inches, its not too wide and seems to be manageable.
I do have to say that the farthingale skirt without the hoops did drape beautifully and I will probably use it again as maybe a petticoat or even just a regular everyday skirt, but it was just too wide for me as a farthingale.
I decided that the best place to take off the extra was the gores, since I didn't want to mess up the front and back panel top shaping. So with a finished size of 71" + 6" for seam allowances, that gives me 77 ", 44 for front and back panels. So the side gores should only make up 33 inches on the hem. I have four panels, so they should be 8 Ľ inches wide at the bottom.
I ripped out the seams and on each gore, measured out 8 Ľ inches along the base. Then I redrew the line up to the top and cut them out. I sewed them the same as before, bias edge to straight edge and the skirt now seems to be a much better width. After everything was all sewed together, I evened up the hem.
The next step is to start sewing in the rope, which I hope to get started on this weekend. I have a three day weekend ahead of me, hopefully it will be productive.
December 11, 2003
Well, nearly 8 months later I finally finished this, though not as planned! Using the rope as the stiffener in the skirt to hold it out ended up being a big disappointment, the rope just flopped around and didn't stay stiff. I did wash the rope before sewing it into the skirt, but it didn't seem to make it go all floppy. Of course I found out that the rope didn't work after I had spent about 8 hours sewing the darn thing by hand, after which I chucked it across the room, uttered some un-lady like things and proceeded to rip out the stitching on the rope.
Before stitching the rope in, I had finished the waistband and the side opening before this, just used a simple facing on the side opening and a drawstring waistband, very comfy.
I then proceeded to go back to the beginning and rethink WHY I wanted this skirt and its purpose. Its purpose is to hold out the outer skirts and therefore it needs to be sturdy and structurally capable of keeping its shape. The original material used by the Spanish in the farthingale to provide the hoops was willow wands, so I went and bought some #8 round reed at the local reed and cane supply store and used that instead.
First, I sewed the channels in the farthingale, the channels were created by measuring and marking down from the top all around and then folding the fabric on that mark, ironing it and sewing 1" in from the fold, but leaving about a 6" opening to be able to thread the reed through. The openings are staggered on opposite sides of the farthingale so that all the pointy bits are on different sides of the skirt and not in front or back.
The first one I placed at the spot that my hand falls to on the side, so I can pick up the skirts easily for walking up stairs and the like, it also conveniently happens to be a spot that is right where the rear joins the legs, so it ends up being a comfortable spot to sit on a piece of reed for a couple of hours.
The next one I sewed was the one at the hem, this one is actually faced on the inside with a piece of fulled wool fabric since I wanted it to be a little sturdier and wouldn't rip out if it got stepped on etc.
I tried it on at this point to see how long it was now that the two channels were sewn in and decided it needed at least one more. So I measured in between the two already sewn and place the next one in the middle. It was still a little two long, so I sewed another channel in between the two bottom ones and it came out the right length.
While I was sewing the channels, the reed was soaking in hot water in the bathtub. I clipped the holders and plopped it in the hot water. It was like one of those sponges that expands in the water, just sort of slowly expanded and straightened out of the tightly coiled circle it had been . I would turn it over every 10 minutes or so, so both sides got equally wet.
When the reed was all soaked through and flexible, I brought the farthingale, a good set of kitchen shears (although garden shears would probably have worked better), twine and a chair and sat down by the tub. I threaded the top channel first and when I had pushed the reed all the way around, made sure that the fabric was taut all around over the reed, overlapped the starting end with the long end, clipped the long end and tied the two together with twine. I think that garbage bag twist ties probably would have worked better and will try that next time, but twine worked good too, just a little tricky.
Once all the channels had been threaded with reed, I hung it up to dry. You can see it here, hanging by string loops safety pinned to the waistband. I wanted it to dry as it would be worn, so that the shape would be right.
