Edwardian Drawers
Since I'm working on early 20thC items of clothing, it's time to make some relevant underwear! As a woman with thighs that do not have The Gap, chafing is something I've struggled with every summer when wearing skirts and although there are many pairs of bike shorts and other 'chub rub' solutions out there, I thought a pair of light, fluffy, Edwardian-inspired closed drawers would be a great option for me.
Above: Examples of both open and closed drawers from the V&A museum collection in London.
I previously purchased a copy of the Folkwear Edwardian Underthings pattern from The Foldline and really love the detail that the pattern provides about the history of the garments and extra detail on how to add additional fluff, lace, and pintucks as it makes it really easy to make the items as fancy or as plain as I like. As a side note, this extra information about the purchased pattern and different embellishment options is something that Folkwear patterns are great for and I always love reading about what I'm making and their place in history. I purchase most of my patterns from
I purchased some very lightweight, white cotton from a local fabric store; it's somewhere around the weight of a cotton voile or light muslin but is tightly woven and floats like a dream. It's not very wide - around 45" so I used the narrow width cutting pattern and cut the pieces for a size medium based on my waist measurement.
The pattern construction notes recommend using french seams for the drawers so that's what I did and they worked beautifully. The only challenge I faced what stitching the first pin tuck on the ruffles too wide which means they have one larger tuck that slightly overlaps the two narrower ones but they're underwear and beyond this post no one will be seeing them!
I finished off the ruffle with some lovely, white cotton lace that I picked up at my local sewing store and hand worked the buttonholes and buttons with some pink silk thread and with that, they were finished! It was probably a total of 3 hours work to get these whipped up and I've placed the buttons a little too far out for them to sit where I'd like above my hips but they're wonderfully airy and I'll definitely be making more pairs!
