Bustles of the 1800’s

Over the last few months I have built four bustles from the following patterns: Truly Victorian Grand Bustle 1869-1875, Patterns of History (State Historical Society of Wisconsin) 1873 bustle, The Mantua-Maker 1886 bustle and Laughing Moon 1886 bustle.

The following information includes my notes on the patterns and instructions as well as photos of both the finished garments and particular details. NOTE: how a pattern is drafted effects how the garment goes together this means that instructions are important - both the writing and the reading of them! When building any samples for demonstration based on purchased patterns I follow the written instructions.

Truly Victorian

Pattern # TV108 "Grand Bustle" 1869-1875
(small, medium and large in one pattern)

The final garment has the right silhouette and looks great!

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Upon opening the pattern it was evident that this is not a professionally drafted pattern. It is hand drafted and labels are scrawled in hand writing and in some cases do not exist. There are no notches except on the waistband. Instructions are vague and unclear (as are most instructions for historical patterns). The shortfalls make this a challenging project when it does not need to be. Had I not been happy with the end result I would not be supporting this pattern on my web site. But the finished garment is everything it should be: functional, period accurate and lovely to look at. I like the end results of this pattern best of all the bustle patterns I made.

Things to watch for:

These notes should not replace the instructions that come with the pattern but are simply meant as a supplement to them.

Center Front (CF) is not indicated on the front piece, however it is referred to in the instructions as "the straight seam". The problem here is that the side seam is also straight. I folded the pattern in half lengthwise to see in one seam would appear - not straight - this did not help but did indicate that the piece is almost symmetrical…but not quite. I therefor made the assumption that the graded seam was the side the side seam and the one that was not must be center front. To keep this clear I notched the center front with a single notch 8" below the waist. This serves two purposes, to indicate the center front seam and to mark where the stitching of the center front seam should begin (as indicated in the instructions).

		Therefore Step 1 should perhaps be to notch your front pattern piece in two places. First, make a single notch 8" below the waistline and second, notch the side seam with a single notch 8" down from the waist and another double notch about 10" below that. You cut 4 of this piece and two get sewn to create a center front, while the other two get joined to these to create the side panels. By making the above notches it will be easy to figure out which piece gets sewn where when you have the pieces at the sewing machine. Step 4 says "On back, sew the upper center edges together as if it were a dart." Easy, but then what? It does not say. Pressing open did not seam a good idea so I pressed it to one side and I now have a raw edge here. You may want to stitch the seam allowance down or finish the edge in your preferred method. Everything then went smoothly until Step 8. At this point you are required to sew all of the ruffle pieces together to create one long strip of fabric. If I were to do this again I would re-measure the ruffle pieces and cut the
lengths required for each ruffle.The reason is that I ended up with seams in my ruffles very close to where the ruffle joined the skirt, sometimes as close as ½" from the side seam. I prefer not to have seams where I do not need them and adding a couple of inches to each ruffle length would eliminate this. The long raw edges of the ruffles need to be finished and I opted to serge the top edge and did a machine rolled hem on the bottom edge. The top edge is not seen in the finished garment. I used a "ruffler foot" to make the ruffle and stitched right next to the serging.

Step 11 simply says to sew ruffles to correct side. It does not say "how" to sew the ruffles on. Do you pin them into place, as they will hang on the finished garment? And work from the bottom up? The illustration on the pattern envelope does not indicate a gathered edge on the top ruffle, so I pinned my ruffles upside down so that when sewn the ruffle would fold back over the gathers, hiding the serged edge. To do this you have to work from the top ruffle down. NOTE: do not sew the second ruffle from the top through the two vertical steel casings!

The instructions say not to sew the bottom ruffle when you sew the others. This is because the bottom ruffle does not get sewn into the side seams as the others do. Therefor you need to finish the ends of the bottom ruffle, I turned the ends in ¼" and then again ¼" and top stitched. This was done after measuring the ruffle on the garment and cutting the ruffle to the appropriate length (including ½" seam allowance at each end). The remainder of the instructions were fine and the only other thing I found was that the front and back pieces do not seem to meet properly at the ends.

We do not sell this patern. To purchase this pattern go to our "Resources Book" where you will find a link to Truly Victorian. You can purchase this and many other patterns from their site.

Patterns of History

1873 Bustle

When I ordered this pattern from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin I thought I was ordering a long "fish tail" bustle but this is short and very similar to Jean Hunnisett's bustle on page 132 of Costumes for Stage and Screen 1800-1909. You can see my version of her bustle in the Photo Album section of the web site. While these two bustles look very similar the construction varies dramatically. Jean's is a simpler bustle to build as the internal construction is not so detailed.

This is a nice little bustle, said to be "One Size Fits All". You will likely find this is not the case - it is is in my opinion both too short and too narrow for many women I know. At 5feet 2 inches tall this is a perfect bustle for me. If you are over 5'7" with hips wider than 42" (106cm) you may want to consider using this only as a starting point.

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Instructions are well illustrated and fairly thorough. I have very few notes on this pattern which indicates it went together smoothly and I had no moments of wondering what I should be doing next. This may sound good but, the end results are not great. You can likely see in the photos above that something wrong is happening where the steels meet the side seam just above the ruffle. The photo below shows what happens when the ties inside are not tied at all. Even when the ties are tied the puckering still occurred. I think this could be solved if the ties were not used and a solid panel replaced them, that is how the Hunnisett one is done and it does not pucker. Otherwise more ties should be used and they should be placed in line with the steels to keep the pressure even on them. I have not tested this theory.

Bustle with ties undone… lobstertailing.

It might be assumed that adding vertical steels to the seam allowance would help, and it may but that would inhibit the wearer from sitting down. Horizontal steels collapse like a "slinky" or coil spring and this allows the wearer to sit down.

The Mantua-Maker

#1880-4
4 similarly constructed bustles in different sizes.

I chose to build the largest bustle that dates from around 1884-86. The construction technique is somewhat similar to the other two but all three create very different silhouettes.

I have limited experience with the Mantua-Maker's patterns but have found that the few I have used are extremely well drafted. When I first opened this pattern I thought some angles were a bit odd but I went ahead with little concern due my positive past experiences.

The end result is a very flat top bustle that is structurally sound. I do not however like the fullness of the side panels and would distribute the gathers differently next time. Like the Patterns of History bustle this too is marked as "One Size Fits All" however, this one seems to be a better fit for the larger woman and would swamp me. You do have to consider the time period when choosing a bustle, there were times when they were quite oversized and times when they were quite small. I think that one thing to consider may be the "breadth of the bum" that you are working with. Both the Patterns of History bustle and the Mantua Maker bustle have laced structures underneath which allows for some adjustment in this area. For photos of the insides of these bustles see our Bustle Shapes Comparisons page.

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A cutting layout is provided and includes layout for all pieces including bias strips for bone casing. This pattern is designed for historic authenticity and I tend to look for quicker easier ways as my background is theatre. As a result my layout was quite different, I used twill tape rather than cutting bias strips and cut the ruffle on the straight grain rather than on the bias. This decreased the yardage substantially to only 1meter. I also did not cut both sides and back using the selvages as suggested.

I did as the pattern suggested and stitched sides to back pieces using 1" seam allowances. Note that the side panels will end just above the last casing. Rather than setting grommets into this seam allowance I turned the raw edges ½" in toward each other and pressed the seam closed.

I then took lacing tape and inserted the seam allowance edge between the two fabric seam allowances, pinned it into place and pried out one eyelet from the top of each strip as they would interfere with the seam allowance along the top. At the bottom I neatly tucked the raw edge in and hand stitched it. Using a zipper foot I machine stitched the lacing tape into place.

Prior to stitching the centre back I marked all casings on both back pieces as they could lie flat at this time. The instructions suggest marking the casings after the seam is sewn. While this would be a bit more difficult it does mean that the lines on both sides are sure to match. This is something you need to take care about if you mark the casing before stitching. I also did not use the welt seam but serged (gasp) the seam allowances together. I opted for this method due to the extreme angles that were involved and a desire to keep these areas as neat as possible. So, I stitched the seam, serged the seam allowances together, pressed them to one side, notched the curve where needed and then top stitched just inside the serging from the outside. The finished look from the outside is the same as it would be had I followed the pattern instructions.

After this the pattern says to bind the side skirts and back lower edge. I had done a rolled hem on the side panels earlier as I did not see how it could be done easily after they were attached. I found the bottom edge of the back too small to deal with and so I just serged it and attached a ruffle (but not until after I had sewn on all the casings). If I had turned up the bottom edge I would not have had room to attach the ruffle.

I attached my casings (twill tape) as the pattern stated, going only as far as the side seam. I cut the steels as stated but rather than applying "U" tips I used our plastic tips, first cutting off the tab. The steel I used was #50-8405-10 and the tips are #91-860E-11. I applied the waist band as stated and used 9mm wide twill tape for ties.

To order this pattern and for additional information see The Mantua-Maker 1880's Bustle page.

We also offer a KIT with some of the materials, along with the pattern, for making this project.

Laughing Moon Mercantile #200 Petticoat and Bustle This is made unlike any of the other bustles, it does not call for any steel. However, we used two 30cm spring steels down the length on either side to lessen the curve which developed down the backside and over the buttocks. Perhaps we stuffed the horizontal channels too full. We used polyfill pillow stuffing purchased from a local fabric store and it took two bags. To order this pattern and for additional information see "Victorian Corset with Petticoat" circa 1870-1900.
For a new bustle pattern which we stock, see also Laughing Moon Mercantile 1856-1889 Hoops and Bustles

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