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Glossary of Sewing Terms with Pictures: Bloomers… What are they? #Couture #HistoricalSewing

Images show a pair of pale pink Victorian bloomers with a drawstring waist and gathered pant legs; a cheerleader outfit with a pair of matching panties, showing an arrow indicating that the cheerleader wears these under her skirts for discretion; a pair of purple women's underpants with a little heart at the front; a pair of peach colored little girl's panties with elasticized ruffles at the legs and a ribbon at the front; a 14 inch Wellie Wisher Kendall doll modeling Victorian era bloomers with gathered ruffles below the knee and a little felt top. The text offers three definitions for bloomers, as follows: 1. A woman’s undergarment worn during the Victorian era, designed like trousers but having gathers below the knee, often worn to allow freedom of movement when riding a bicycle; 2.Discretionary short pants worn under a cheerleader’s skirt; 3. Underpants (esp. those with ruffles, often for young girls)
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

DEFINITIONS: 

  1. A woman’s undergarment worn during the Victorian era, designed like trousers but having gathers below the knee, often worn to allow freedom of movement when riding a bicycle
  2. Discretionary short pants worn under a cheerleader’s skirt
  3. Underpants (esp. those with ruffles, often for young girls)

This is my own definition. Of course you can google this term to find other definitions as well.

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Click here to find the pattern and tutorial for making these bloomers (pantaloons): https://wp.me/p1LmCj-GOC The image shows nine different dolls, ranging in size from 8" to 12" wearing the same pair of one-size-fits-all doll bloomers (AKA pantaloons) from the Victorian era. The sewing pattern for making doll-sized bloomers is found at ChellyWood.com, and you can make these patterns from jersey fabric (stretchy material) so that they will fit most fashion dolls in the 8-inch to 12-inch size range. Follow the directions found at the link provided, taking you to ChellyWood.com, where you can download the free printable PDF sewing pattern for these pants and many other doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

When I was in high school, I and my fellow cheerleaders sewed our own cheerleader outfits (not the sweater part, but everything else). At that time, it saved us a lot of money!

And we used the term “bloomers” to refer to the discretionary garment we wore under our cheer skirts (which, on a side note, were gored skirts my freshman year and used godets my sophomore year). In fact, we wore our underpants under these bloomers, so they really did keep people from seeing our undergarments when we did cartwheels and kicks.

But I’ve recently become aware of a trend, in which people who enjoy sewing their own clothes have been making and wearing more Victorian style bloomers to simply wear as trousers. Here are some examples:

On Beautelicate’s website, you can actually purchase “pettipants” which are something akin to bloomers but without the gathers, it seems. So that’s an interesting trend as well!

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:  

How would you define the term “bloomers”? Where you live, does it just mean “underpants”? Or would you only say “bloomers” if you meant Victorian era, below-the-knee leg coverings with ruffles? Do any of you, like me, remember referring to cheerleader undergarments as bloomers?

And what are your thoughts about this modern sewing trend?

Please scroll down and leave a comment below.

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Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.

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