Spotty Circle Skirt

 

This is a ¾ circle skirt. As such there is no pattern. You can work out the sizes you need to cut using an online calculator. I had decided That I wanted a maxi-length skirt. I can’t remember which online calculator I used, but they are app pretty similar. You input your waist measurement, the width of your fabric and the length and fullness of the skirt you would like. It tells you which measurements you need and how to cut the fabric. The issue with using an online circle skirt calculator for this length of skirt is it will tell you that you do not have enough fabric to cut the skirt out - this is not true, but you do need to cut out more than one piece. You need to cut a front and a back and a waistband.

The calculator does give you the radius that you need for your type of skirt. I used this to help me check that I had enough fabric and could fit the front across the width of the unfolded fabric. As this fabric is 150cm wide, it fits well.

I spread the fabric out on our laminated floor which is part of the issue I had. The fabric moved around a lot, resulting in rather uneven cutting. If I were cutting smaller pieces for a smaller project I would use tissue paper to prevent the fabric slipping or a gelatin soak. For this project I should have cut out on my carpeted floor as it would have prevented the shifting, but it is a nightmare to cut on.

I used tailors chalk to mark the pieces directly onto the fabric. I also interfaced the whole of the straight waistband to give enough structure to hold the weight of the skirt. I stay stitched the top of the skirt pieces to prevent them from stretching out and interfaced where the zip was going to be inserted. I only had a green concealed zip in my stash, but as I always use the Kenneth King method I was happy to use this. At some point, I’ll use a bit of black nail polish on the pull so it blends in.

Unfortunately midway through this project I managed to break my overlocker - not sewing this, but it did mean I had to wait almost a week until I managed to get it sorted. Shout out to Ian at The Sewing Machine Guy in Ashington for getting it back to me in super quick time.

Once it was fixed, I finished sewing the skirt up and then hung it up for a few days. As part of the skirt is on the bias, it stretches out and can be much longer than the seams, which are cut on the straight grain. Once it had time to relax, I trimmed it level and sewed the hem using a baby hem method. I find this is perfect for heavily curved hems on very light fabrics. A good press at the end, meant that it hangs nicely. When wearing this it is slightly translucent and needs an underskirt/ leggings underneath. I hadn’t realised this as I made it or I would have added a lining. But you might want to consider that if using this fabric.

This type of skirt is flowy and ideal for the warmer weather I hope we’ll be getting soon. This is going to have to wait a few weeks for it to warm up though before it gets much wear as it’s flipping freezing right now!!!!!