Return of the ruffle-butt panties

A few years ago, my sister, some friends, and I had a discussion about the joys of ruffle-butt panties when you're little.  (See, guys, that's the kind of discussions you have in girls' dorms!)  In the 80s, at least, they used to sell 'em all over the place.  And my grandmother, who bought the fancy clothes for us, bought them for my sisters and me for Sundays.  And they were to go with hard little Stride Rite Mary Janes, lacy socks, and ruffley dresses with full circle skirts.  Like the Lidl Dolly dresses.   I had dresses just like that, complete with parasols and even little white gloves and matching white hats for Easter.  After all, this is the South! 

I think dressing up for church, Christmas, and Easter lasted longer here than other places, but I digress.  There were jingle bells sewn into the petticoats, and even better, when you twirled around, everybody could see the ruffles on your butt!  Don't ask me why, but that was very important at three!


When we found out that Bit was a girl, I started looking for ruffle-butt panties.  After all, half the fun of having a little girl is dressing her up in pretty clothes.  And you have to get the lace and ruffles out of your system before they're old enough to object.  Long story short, numerous google searches led to porn sites (blech) but proved that they weren't commercially available.  And at the time, modern patterns didn't exist.  I had yet to discover vintage and while I did sew occasionally, I didn't make a habit of it at the time.   I was still spending free time writing stories.  (Which I still do sometimes.)

These days, there are free patterns for them on the internet, and when I went to look for new infant patterns for Cranky, I discovered that McCalls has released one.

This is McCalls 6345.  It's an infant pattern, which goes from size Small to Extra Large.  I honestly don't get the wings.  None of my nieces would wear them.  In fact, Bit was so annoyed by the wings we bought for her Halloween costume last year that she refused to wear any of it, and ended up being Scooby Doo.

I don't know if there are commercial versions, though I do know that diaper covers are few and far between because I made quite a few for Bit so that her diapers wouldn't show from beneath her skirts. 

To this day, I still tend to make matching undies to go with Bit's dresses, simply because she shows them off.  ;) She's three, and so thinks nothing about pulling her skirt over her head still.  Last year, my entire congregation saw the frilly, embroidered, lacy underpants I made last year. 1948 underthings

I'm planning on making a pair of ruffle-butts for Bit, too.  And I'm considering sewing a knit gusset into the inside just so they're functional as well as pretty.  What can I say?  I'm planning a couple 50s full-circle dresses for Bit for the twirl factor, so I might as well make the panties to go underneath so that she can show off the ruffles on her bottom the way me, her Mommy, her Aunt Sarah, and her Aunt Mary-Alice did when we were her age!