And that is why....I am not a mathematician!

So, I am working on the farthingale using the Algeca pattern (check my previous post for a picture of the pattern). Now anyone who knows me knows that I went into journalism because I like words - NOT numbers. So, it should come as no surprise that working out the math for the farthingale pattern was a time consuming process. In fact, it took me nearly 4 hours of crunching the numbers before I was pretty sure I got it right.

Guess again, Einstein!

I used the Algeca pattern shapes and worked out how wide the bottom of each cut piece needed to be so that the finished hem would be somewhere in the order of 110 inches. Seemed simple enough - WRONG!

In following the general shape of the Algeca pieces, using my measurements for the bottoms, I ended up with something roughly the size of a tube tent! It is MASSIVE. Now, I'm no teeny waisted thing either, but this is huge even on me.

I thought at first that once I put the hooping (okay, plastic tubing for those playing along at home) into the channels that the size wouldn't be much of an issue since I could just use a gathered waistband. As you can see by the pics, that didn't work out as well as I had hoped.

On the plus side, the hem is a pretty good width, but the upper two bones stand out too far from the body.

SO...my solution is the following:
1. Ditch the plastic tubing and buy some proper hoop boning. This will make the skirt heavier than the plastic tubing, but will lay flat in the channels, thus avoiding the roller coaster looking hoop-lines the tubing is giving me.
2. Cut the boning the sizes that *I* want the channels to be, not the length of the actual channels. Yes, this means that the skirt will have 'gathers', but there is some pictoral evidence for this in the 1470-1540 time period, so I won't worry about it.

The next time I make a farthingale I'm going to spend a longer on the measurements (and get Ken to double check them for me). Oh well, learn by doing I guess!