Dress for Dickens Faire (unders)

Dickens Fair is set in the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria. The fair specifically focuses on 1840s - 1860s. Last year I decided I would try to dress up and go for a day, but alas. There were a few issues with the underpinnings that put a halt to things (and then I went on to work on the Magpie Dress for last year's 12th Night Coronation).
I spent hours working on a new corset. I bought this sweet charming nursery print calico from JoAnn Fabrics and tirelessly pieced the whole thing together so that it was carrying the motif around the body of the corset. I was actually very pleased with the results. This is it just before binding the edges (with satin bias binding).

Then I started researching corded petticoats for the support structure of the skirt. After looking at several people's work on the Internet I decided to do the method of sandwiching the cording between two layers of muslin and spiral the cording up and around. This method was tiresome and infuriating. I promptly put the corded petticoat into the UFO pile to think about what it had done wrong. It sat in the corner for a very long time. In fact, I didn't get it out again until about 3 weeks ago and even then I took the whole damn thing apart. I decided to not do the spiral and instead did straight lines across the two panels (that I then sewed together with the serger because...workhorse). Even this took flippin' forever and I still had to do a lot of fiddly working to get the cotton cording to nestle up against the previous row of stitching. I was just about ready to die of frustration and embarrassment when I thought I'd give the double needle a try. This went so quickly that I declared loudly on Facebook "I HATE LEARNING" because [sigh]. Then I starched it with Sta-Flo and made a quick petticoat out of a full sheet.

Just prior to starting the petticoat this year, I made a new chemise. I bought some of the lightest weight sheer cotton tissue this summer with the exact purpose of either a new chemise or a new veil. Or maybe both. I think there might be enough. And while the chemise pattern is not the most accurate for 19th century (I used the free pattern generator from Elizabethan Costume Net), it works just fine. That pattern goes together super quickly and is sized for your measurements. I just put in a shorter sleeve length into the generator. I chose to flat fell all the seams to both enclose the raw edges and to give them a little bit more strength. When I say sheer, this fabric is SHEER!!! No shots of the front unless I'm in my corset...it's that sheer.