After doing Elizabethan womens clothing for almost two and a half years, I figured it was time I got a farthingale. Up until now I've just been wearing unstiffened petticoats under my fairly modestly cut middle-class skirts. I want something that's not too huge, and which is made in as period a style as I can manage.
After a farthingale thread on one of the costuming mailing lists, I decided to base mine on this picture from the Milanese Tailor's Handbook:
As you can see, the blue underskirt appears to have a rope stitched onto it in a long spiral. I chose to make a similar farthingale stiffened with rope. Some might call that a corded petticoat rather than a farthingale, but I think that an Elizabethan lady would have referred to it as a farthingale regardless of the form of stiffening used, so that's what I'm going to do too.
My materials are fairly sturdy linen cloth (I usually use it for linings on bodices and stuff), and 3/8" hemp cord. Both were a sort of yucky light brown colour, so I decided I would dye them first. I used readily available commercial dye to dye them pink:
My pattern for the farthingale is based on the one in Juan de Alcega's Spanish tailor's handbook of 1589. It is cut with two rectangles (front and back) and four triangular gores, and is very efficient of fabric.
The rectangles are somewhat wider than half the circumference of my hips. The triangular gores are measured to give the amoung of fullness I desire. I based the fullness on my narrowest loose kirtle, which has a hem circumference of 96", so my farthingale is a little less, at about 92", so the kirtle will sit over it nicely (I hope).
I sewed all the pieces together with flat-felled seams. The following picture shows one half of the farthingale sewn together. The centre panel is in fact rectangular; any distortion that makes it looks tapered is just a perspective trick.
November 2nd, 2003
The skirt is fully constructed and I'm attaching rope. In fact I've even worn it to a couple of events already, with just a few rope channels, and although it wasn't quite working how I wanted it did add a bit of fullness to my skirts. Here are some photos of the rope going on (the farthingale is just draped over the back of a chair):
