Hello lovelies,


last year I made a set of small panniers; these were used in the 18th century as undergarments to widen the skirts on the sides until the 1780s. Only the English kept the pannier as their official court fashion until 1820.

The pattern I used came from the book "Guide to 18th century dress making" by American duchess. It was very easy to follow and had a lot of pictures and step by step written instructions. All in all I can really recommend her book if you are interested in the fashion of the 18th century. Her new book will come out in Summer and it's all about hair and make-up, I can't wait! Follow the Amazon link to get to the book (no affiliation).

The fabric I used was a medium-weight cotton with stripes, I found it in my left-over fabric stash and just had enough for this project. Hooray, lucky me.

The ribbon is the typical cotton herringbone patterned one, 2,5cm wide. I think it's 100% cotton.
As for the boning I used two layers of reed boning, also about 2cm wide. I found that one layer was not as stable and used two.
 I cut the length I needed with my steel cutter and then smoothed and rounded the tip.

I used a medium file from the home improvement store to make the edges round after cutting them. If not then the pointy edges would pierce through the fabric. And the file did the job without too much splinters, which was great because I expected the reed to break or fall into splinters.

This is how my pattern looked like. I used wrapping paper to make a paper pattern for this.
Doesn't look hard at all, know does it?

 My stitches are not very straight but they did their job. This is how it looks from the outside and the picture below is from the inside with the tape.




Actually there is nothing more to say to this project, it went smoothly and everything worked out perfectly.
Here are some more pictures of the finished pannier:





All the best,

Auris Lothol