1890's Costume Challenge - Petticoat

I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped for yesterday.  As usual, I  underestimated the labor involved.  Actually it's more a case of I didn't realize the petticoat has about 15 yards of ruffles, 10 of which also required a narrow hem.  The thought of basting and drawing up all those ruffles, not to mention turning that hem by hand made me kind of queasy.

10 +  yds. all hemmed nice an neat, ready to be gathered.

Then, I remembered that my New Home Sewing Machine, circa 1947, has a hem foot and ruffler attachment.  Unfortunately, the tension on it was totally messed up.  But it was definitely worth my time to try to fix it.  After a few minutes on Google and few more making adjustments, it was working again.  I had to wind the oddly sized bobbins on my modern machine, since the rubber bobbin wheel is rotted and I've never found a replacement of the right size, and it did take me about 15 minutes to get the ruffler set just right, but it was worth it. 

The really neat thing about this ruffler is that it has the ability to gather a ruffle and sew it simultaneously to an ungathered base fabric or apply an ungathered trim to the top of  the fabric you are gathering all in one step.

I don't trust my skills on this machine enough to try that yet, but I imagine back in the day this was an amazing time save.  I may try it out on my next petticoat.