Circle skirts up in here

So, I’ve wanted to make the girls some “circle” skirts for quite awhile now, but couldn’t wrap my head around the folding and the math and the waistband.  It was all super weird and complicated.  But I saw this tutorial and knew that I had to suffer through because, Hello? My girls live in skirts and dresses. The twirlier the better.

That tutorial was useful, but the math I used was different (from another tutorial on a community site I visit).  I measured the girls’ hips and divided this number by pi (PI!) and then divided this again by 2 to get the measurement I needed, since I was using a woven with no stretch. 

So, 21” waist / 3.14 = 6.68
6.68 / 2 = 3.34”

I rounded up to 3.5” because I’m lazy.  I measured 3.5” down from the corner fold, and cut the waistband.

One trick that made it easier for me to grasp when folding the material: I folded the fabric in half horizontally (cut edge to cut edge), then in half vertically (selvage to selvage).  You will have one point with both your folds — that’s where you mark down and cut out the waist.  Also, I tied a string around my marking pen to make nice even lines.

Once I got the hang of it it’s ridiculously simple, I could kick myself for not making them sooner.

I used knit to bind the waist and make their waistbands, but I’m not very pleased with how that turned out — they were pretty loose even when I tightened the waistband by several inches.  If I do it again, I may explore adding elastic instead to keep the skirts on their skinny little stick bodies.

These skirts are VERY quick to make.  You cut the fabric on the fold so that when you open it out, TA-DA! It’s already in a circle, one piece, no side seams to sew.  Just finish the waistband and the bottom, and you’re done.  It’s exactly like magic, only with more hemming.