Fabulous Free Pattern Friday....The Circular Skirt

We buy so many patterns that we really don't need to buy, especially if we only knew how easy it is to draft them ourselves. Enter the circular skirt.There are only two measurements needed to draft a circular skirt, your waist measurement and the length of your skirt. There are four basic types of circular skirts, a full circular skirt,  3/4 circular skirt, a half circular skirt and a quarter circular skirt. Of course the full circular skirt is going to be quite full and the other skirts have less and less volume. The equation for the skirts are as follows;
full circular skirt:
waist measurement minus 1 inch divided by 4.
3/4 circular skirt
waist measurement minus 1 inch divided by 5.
1/2 circular skirt
waist measurement minus 1 inch divided by 3.
1/4 circular skirt
waist measurement mutiplied by 2/3.
The 1 inch is not subtracted from the waistline for a 1/4 circular skirt as this skirt is a hip-fitting skirt and the inch is needed for ease over the hips. You can ease the wistline into the waistband or darts can be added to the skirt for a sleeker look.
Today we will be drafting the full circular skirt.
As an example, if your waist measurement is 25", subtract 1 inch and divide by 4. The result will be 6 inches (25 minus 1 is 24. Divide 24 by 4 and the result will be 6").
Determine the length that you would like your skirt to be, we'll use 25".

 On your paper draw a line that is at least 30" long and another line squared that is also at least 30" long. See above.

With our equation, we determined that our 25" waist measurement minus 1" divided by 4 is 6", from the intersection of the two lines you will want to measure down 6". This will give you the curved line that you see in the above picture.

From the dotted line that we drew in for the waistline, we will meaure down 25" or the desired length of our skirt. This will be the second dashed line that you see above.

Remember to add seam allowance then cut out your pattern. It should look like the above pattern piece. You will cut 4 of these for your skirt or if your fabric is wide enough, the center front (and center back) can go on the fold. In that case you will only need to cut 2 pieces.

If you have a piece of fabric with a border print, you can also use it with your circular skirt pattern.

You should layout the pattern on the fabric with the border running as it is in the above picture. You can see from the picture of the skirt that I made up above that when the skirt is sewn, the border will fall against the stomach and then fall along the sides of the skirt. This is really quite attractive.
Once you have sewn the skirt, be sure to allow it to hang for at least 24 hours. This will allow the bias to stretch a much as it will before you hem the skirt. Be sure to have someone help you mark the hem before you hem the skirt or your hem will not be even. Look at the hemline in the picture below. I have not hemmed this skirt yet and you can see how uneven the hem is.

And now for a little announcement. The fabric for the two skirts that you see in the above pictures will be for sell in my new Etsy store (finally!!). You can find my store at http://www.sewbussted.etsy.com/. I will not be posting the fabric until tomorrow(Saturday August 20, 2011). The fabric comes ready to cut into two pieces for a circular skirt. I have one piece of the black tie dye and two pieces of the, as I call it, Sex In The City hot pink fabric. I will include instructions on how to determine your waist measurement. So check in later tomorrow afternoon if you are interested in the fabric. In the above picture I used a second piece of the hot pink fabric to make the hat I am wearing.
So good luck with your circular skirt endeavors. They are really so easy to do and there is absolutely no reason to ever buy a pattern for a circular skirt.
Enjoy.
Rhonda