Walking in a walking skirt(with lace embroidered of course!)

The project that I was longing to make...

Finally get my hand on reconstructing a walking skirt. The structure of the victorian has fascinated me a lot. Maybe is the flat front shape and the bump volume created by the pleats at the back.

ladies in walking skirt (Nowe Mody, 1896)

Suit from Metropolitan Museum (1892)

In this making, I have adjust a bit for the making to adopt to my mid weight and bouncy red checker fabric.

Usually you can do flat lining for the inside, but I skipped this part as the fabric itself has a pretty decent wrong side.

I chose to fell stitch all the seams and added a facing at the bottom hem.

the inside of the skirt. The pocket!

Close-up of the hand sewn hem finishing, side seam / hem / pocket

Since the fabric nature made the bottom hem not sitting nicely as it should be. I had too stitch the bottom as near to the bottom as possible, so the facing and body fabric can finally sit and gives a nice curvy.

It is not the best outcome to archive a nice neat bottom line, but it did its job. The alternative way should be adding a layer of stiffer supporting fabric to the facing first, thus hand tic the facing to the body like the tailoring method in suit hem, so the facing will stay flat and literally stick together, end up having a proper thick and nice bottom.

But anyway, I got the result and feel satisfied with it.

Dress flat lay on floor. front(left) and back(right)

Selection of lace, a bit of struggle, too many choice and limited amount, and mt skirt demand a huge amount. I tend to find more vinatge-looking lace to fit this making. Using mostly cotton non-stretch lace, Let's hope the red fabric won't transfer colour to the lace...

The lacing placement parts is easy, just time consuming, usual hand stitching and matching lace process. Nothing complicated and pretty straight forward.

Button hole are carefully stitch by hand.

For the upcoming walking skirt, a shorter version and uses a crisp and light weight fabric, curious to see how it hangs differently for the same pattern.

plus I need to wear this skirt out for some shoot when the weather cool down.

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