Ready to Bustle?

     

I promised I'd tell you how to make the skirt of the princess gown, so here goes.  I assembled the whole dress and did the bustling last.

• Assemble dress, making sure that you have a very full skirt.  I used a full width of the fabric for both the front and the back of the dress skirt - I didn't measure the fabric, but it was probably 45"-50" wide or so.  So, the full circumfrence of the skirt would be around 90" - a very full skirt!!
• Find and mark the top and bottom center of the front of the skirt.  
• Measure the distance from the center to the side.  Divide by 3 and mark along the bottom of the skirt.  So, let's say that the distance from the center to the side is 24".  You're going to mark every 8" - the center, at 8" over from the center, at 16" over from the center, and at the side seam (24").  Repeat for the other front half.
• Mark 6" up from the bottom at each side seam.  Then, 9".  Then 12".  Then 16" at the center.  These increments may vary depending on the length of the dress you're making.  I made about a 2T/3T.  The top of my center point (16" from the bottom) was about 3 1/4" down from the top of the skirt.

• Sew two parallel lines (using a gathering, or a loose, stitch) straight down from the top mark to the bottom.  Secure your thread at the top so that you can scrunch it up without the bobbin threads pulling loose. 

• Now scrunch...cinch...whatever you wanna call it!  Be sure you scrunch all of your bustles an even amount.  The finished length of my scrunched portions were about 2 1/2".  
• Secure the threads.  I tried to just tie triple knots in the thread, but it didn't seem to hold well.  So, I ran a regular stitch down the center of my scrunched portions and that did the trick.  
• Fluff and wear!!  

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