I pulled out my sewing machine for a fun one hour project. I made this circle skirt out of one yard of printed cotton fabric (3 dollars at Yardage Town!). You can see the finished circle skirt modeled by my 1950's dress form. Here is a quick run down of the procedure if you are interested in making this quick and fun vintage style skirt. You need: 1 sewing machine, heming tape, 1 sq yard of printed cotton fabric, 1 button.
Note: I use hemming tape because I like the lovely contrasting color and the ease of having a ready made strip of fabric. If you want to make your own hemming tape or use the scraps from the yard you bought (of which there will be plenty), feel free. The hemming tape is really nothing special here.
- Cut corners off of fabric to create a large circle, the largest circle that you can.
- Measure the circumference of your waist where you would like the dress to fall. Add two inches to this number so you can get in and out of your skirt.
- Cut a hole out of the center of large circle roughly the circumference that you measured in the previous step. I did this by doing a tiny bit of math. I divided the circumference by 2pi to get the radius of the skirt, then folded the circle in half twice, allowing the center of the circle to be one corner of the folded fabric. Then I cut the fabric using an arc the radius I calculated away from the corner.
- Hem the bottom. This involves folding over the bottom twice and sewing it down. If you've got an iron then use it to crease the fabric before sewing.
- Cut your hemming tape. The length of the hemming tape is again the circumference of your waist + 2".
- Pin your hemming tape to the waist of your skirt. If they aren't exactly the same size, then you should do a bit of pleating. The pleating will not likely be noticeable in the final product.
- Sew hemming tape to the top skirt. Put the two right sides of the fabric together and sew them down.
- Make a button hole in the hemming. If you are like me then your hips are way bigger than your waist. This step is to ensure you can get in and out of your garment. I laboriously made the button hole by hand, but there a lot of ways to do it. Just make sure your button hole matches your button! I pinched the hemming fabric together and pushed the button hole through both layers.
- Sew down your button. If you can spring for it, use button thread. It is thicker and it will save you time in the long run. Place your button in a place that will cling the fabric attractively to your waist when buttoned.