What a difference some starch make

Ever since I starched the edges of Lady Poe to keep them from unravelling I have been interested in trying out more starching. I did use the leftovers of the starch and dunked a petticoat in it, but that was quite diluted and weak. Now I wanted to really starch a petticoat.

Only problem is that I don't have a good late 19th or early 20th century petticoat. What I had up in my attic though was one of these probably 1980's romantic skirts, in cotton with a bit of ruffle and broderie anglaise at the bottom. I had gotten it as a gift many, many years ago for someone who thought I could use it for something historical. I hope my photos in the following are clear enough, I can't use my dressform for this since the 1520s court gown is occupying it.

One issue was that it was too small, I could pull it up to my thighs, but not over them. It was quite long as well, and with my short legs I wouldn't feel bad cutting off the top to make it larger.

I measured and cut off around 12 cm. I had planned to use the cut off strip to enlarge the skirt, but as you can see it wasn't straight, and when I tried to rip it into a straight strip it simply got too small.

Instead I took a strip of cotton voile and cut it into three lengths. I used one length for the top part of the skirt, and I gathered two lengths to make a ruffle. I then simply cut out the side seam of the skirt and added this new panel in. It's not the most beautiful or discrete piecing, but I'm not planning on showing off the petticoat.

At the top I just folded and sewed the top edge down and put a piece of cotton tape as a drawstring. I had a functional petticoat, now it was time to play around with starching it. I very much followed the instructions from Leimomi at The Dreamstress.

I don't have a garden or balcony, so in order to dry the petticoat (after I had dunked it in my biggest pot on the stove) I put it over a stand made from my washing basket and an extra bucket. I had covered the stand and the floor in plastic bags, so that the starch wouldn't go down the drain or the petticoat wouldn't cling to the stand. Also since I had a limited space, and bucket/pot, I didn't wring any extra starch out, I simply tried to pat off the worst. I left the petticoat drying until next day.

When it was dry it felt very much like paper and as you can see it could stand on it's own. I took it to my ironing board, that I had covered in an old sheet, and pressed the whole petticoat with the ironing on the highest setting and using a lot of steam.

After the pressing you can see that it has gotten a lot softer. It's still crisp though, and it's definitely more comfortable now that it doesn't feel like raw paper. If you don't let the starch dry completely you are supposed to get a stiffer result when pressing it.

Since the dressform can't be used, I still wanted to show the effect of the starch. As you can see the ruffle is at a definite angle and holds its own shape.

I'm definitely converted to starching my petticoats from now on, I'm not sure I'm daring to starch cuffs and collars and finer delicate things though.