Blue Ruffle skirt and Embroidery

Worn with my 1910's blouse and bustle skirt.

My apologies for not posting this sooner. It has been a very busy weekend. Myself and a few of my family went down to the Living History show in Kalamazoo this Saturday. I could have stayed for hours looking at all the interesting things people were selling, but we had to get back to town for something. I was mainly looking for a cameo brooch to wear with my Civil War dress (and possibly my bustle dress), but I ended up buying a lot more. I did get a brooch and some stockings to wear with my dresses. I bought the stockings because I only have colored socks, so I needed a period-correct alternative. I also bought a lovely olive green silk scarf and a hair pin. :) It was very interesting seeing all the costumes and I already can't wait for next year!


On to the main post. For my little sister's birthday I made her a ruffled skirt out of blue fabrics left over from a quilt. I originally imagined it to be slightly ruffle-y (ending around 90 inches), but it ended up being 218 inches around the bottom, which is even bigger than my hoop skirt! She says it isn't too ruffled though, so it's all good. :) Is there even such a thing as too ruffled? It looks gorgeous when she twirls.

I started at the top, ruffled a strip and sewed it on to the waistband. Ruffle, sew, repeat. The ruffles were 4 inches in width except for the last, which was 6 and 1/2, simply because I didn't think the original 4 inch ruffle looked long enough. I used the 13 inches of fabric I had left to make it a bit wider.

And on another note, I tried my hand at embroidery a few weeks ago. This being my first time, I think I did pretty well. I also tried embroidering a rose bud, but it didn't turn out well at all, so I didn't take a picture of it.

The fabric I used was from the scrap box. It puckered quite a bit, but I think that it was A. because I can't find my embroidery hoop, and B. because the fabric has quite a stretch to it. I've come to the conclusion that we need more natural colors for embroidering flowers. :)