Crinoline

I have wanted a hoop skirt, or crinoline, for a long time, and had tried, with disastrous results, to make one myself. Ultimately, I want a big one for my Queen of Hearts, but first, my Victorian Geocacher needed one. Sad side note, we had to cancel the Victorian Geocaching day, so I have yet to wear my outfit. But that is OK, I managed to pick up some extra hours at work instead! And it bought me another two weeks to finish. My next chance to wear this outfit is the Can't Stop the Serenity event, on June 23rd.

I looked for patterns, instructions, even looked at buying one on eBay. After shipping, they were not as affordable as they were at first glance... A $20 set of hoops is great until you account for international shipping! And no one in Canada seems to be distributing them.

I found a site, http://www.deathbychutney.com/hoopskirt.htm, where she has a great set of instructions on how to make one, but the best part was her suggestions for materials. Once again, Home Depot has come to the costumer's rescue! She recommends using soaker hose for the hoops. It is flexible, yet strong, and is made of a foamy rubber. It is also inexpensive! I used a little over half of a 50ft roll, at $12 per roll! While it is not as light weight as other materials, it is certainly not too heavy. I tried on the finished product with no corset for support, and it was comfortable to wander around the house in, and didn't dig in at all.

I won't rehash the instructions on how to make it, as hers are pretty clear, complete with diagrams. I will show some photographs of the pieces, and make some suggestions of my own, in addition to her instructions.

The first thing I did was to choose a fabric that had stripes. All the seams in this are straight lines, and having a fabric that has those lines printed in it made it so much easier to sew!!

My first mistake was choosing a fabric that had stretch to it. The elastic properties of the skirt, combined with the rubbery hose made it very difficult to feed through the channels. My solution: tape. I wrapped a loop of tape around the hose at regular intervals, about 8" apart. I could then shift the fabric from one patch of tape to the next, working my way around the loop. Once I got the hang of it, it went quite quickly!

When the hose had been thread through the entire loop, I used a piece of hose, about 3" long, that fit inside the hole of the soaker hose, to snug the pieces closed.

I started with the bottom hoop, and worked my way up, until I had finished all the hoops. In the case of this one, I had 4 hoops. It isn't a wide skirt, so I didn't need as much support. For my Queen of Hearts, I will probably need to go with 6 hoops, and a fuller shape.

The finished product turned out quite well!

I will make a small pad to hold the back of the hoops out more, and probably sew ties to the inside front that loop back around my bum to help flatten the front and give it more poof in the back. But for now, this does the job.

I am also missing the petticoat, which I will tackle tonight and tomorrow. This should allow for the fabric to move smoothly over the hoops, and even out any bumps they cause. I did find that the fit was a little tighter than I intended, so I will consider shortening the hoops by a couple of inches to avoid puckering and bunching in the outer layer. It is easier to shorten than to lengthen!

With the outer garments over top, it looks very nice!

When I find the charger for my good camera, I will go out and take some nice photos! Probably in my yard near the maple, but I will get some and post those.

To recap, lessons learned while making this crinoline...
- Soaker hose is rubbery, don't use elastic fabric, or be prepared to use tape as lubricant.
- Striped fabric does wonders for keeping your channels straight!
- It is surprisingly easy to move and sit in!

Thanks to Death by Chutney for the great tutorial! Your suggestion for soaker hose was the major piece to this puzzle! Of all the tutorials on how to make a hoopskirt, yours was the only one with a suggestion for the hoop material.

****Update**** I noticed today that Death By Chutney's website is no longer available. Hopefully, it is a temporary thing. But, seeing as the great tutorial is no longer available, and as such, my links do not work, I will try to set up my own tutorial instead.