Starching a Petticoat the 19th Century Way

A few days ago I mentioned that I was starching one of my some-ten-year-old mid-19th century petticoats the old fashioned way. I have now come home from my parents and can tell you how it went.

I started with washing and ironing it to take a “before” picture to compare with. It is a simple petticoat, gathered to a waistband, buttoned in the back, and with a single tuck at the bottom. I will make the hems deeper on any future petticoats, but all in all this one is tolerable. It’s sewn with a back stitch at the seams, and the hem and tuck is sewn with a running stitch. In real life it should be worn with a number of additional petticoats for fullness, but I didn’t want to wear them on this picture, since the whole point was to see what the starch could do. So it looks like a wet dishcloth on this picture.

I had read that both corn starch and potato starch were used in the period. Since corn was close to non-existing here in Sweden at the time, I used potato starch. So, from what I’d read, you should stir the starch in boiling water. What I forgot was what happens when you do that with potato starch…. it turns to jelly! Complete disaster! I laughed about it, poured the horrid mess in cold water so as to be able to touch it and squeezed it to a jelly-mess. I then poured it through a sieve to get rid of the big lumps. I hoped that there would be enough starch left after I threw the jelly-lumps away.

I put the petticoat in the cloudy starch, soaked it and then wringed it, and hung it up to dry. It had a soapy feeling, and I did my best to hang it in such a way as to not let it stick together while drying. And then I went to my parent’s for a week.