How to make a Fourth of July Inspired Circle Skirt

sewing

circle skirtHappy July 7th to everyone! This is the day when you look around your house and reflect on what just went down over the past weekend. You haul the bag full of empty beer cans out to recycle, do three loads of laundry most which contain wet nasty towels covered in watermelon juice, and then finally after rubbing aloe vera on your shoulders for the third time, decide that maybe today would be a good day to invest in some sunscreen that has a higher than 15 SPF. Our Fourth of July holiday weekend was actually much more tame this year than it has been in past. We of course made the obligatory trip down to Folly Beach, hosted a party at our house to celebrate America but also our dog Legolas’s 11th birthday, and visited with friend and family who flew in town for the long weekend. Will and I both got tons of sun and very little sleep but it was worth every minute of it! Here are a few photos from the weekend:Fourth of July Collage To celebrate the fourth of July holiday in style, I decide to make a new skirt that I could wear both out to the beach that day, then to a cookout at my parents, and again later to watch the fireworks that night. About a month back I headed to Five Eighth Seams and of course they never fail to have just want I need. I found this great blue with white polka dots light weight cotton.  I can’t remember the fabric designer but I can tell you that they had this fabric design in almost every color under the sun. For this project you will need between 2 to 2 1/2 yards of fabric depending on how long you want your skirt to be.  I was able to get away with only 2 yards because I like my skirts short 🙂 IMG_9938IMG_9915There are tons of tutorials out there on how to do a basic circle skirt with a zipper. If you go onto Pinterest or even do a Google search you will find tons of tutorials.

Some of my favorites tutorials for this included Merricks Art and By Hand London.

Here are the directions I used, should you decide to make your own:
1. First you will need to revisit your math skills and find the radius of the skirt opening by taking a measurement of your waist (wherever you want the skirt to sit on your waist). Take that number and divide by pi (3.14) then divide again by 2. That number will be your radius. For example. My waist measures to be 33in /3.14/2 = 5.25. Therefore 5.25 is my radius.
2. Fold your fabric in half.
3. Cut out a half circle using your radius measurement as a guide along the folded edge. To do this make a point in the center of the folded edge and measure the radius distance in every direction from this point to form a perfect half circle.
4. Cut out two waistband pieces on the bias. You can make this whatever size you want, depending if you want a wide waist band, or a skinny waist band like I did. This will be folded in half and don’t forget to consider a 5/8th seam allowance when choosing your size.
5. Sew right sides together the ends of the waist band pieces to form a circle.
6. Fold your waist band piece in half long ways and press. the bottom should now have 4 raw edges and the top should be a smooth folded over pressed piece.
7.  With right sides  and raw edges together, attach your waistband to your skirt.
8. Cut the back of the skirt open and insert an invisible zipper.
9. Hem the skirt bottom to your desired length.

IMG_9904 IMG_9907 IMG_9911Of course don’t forget your goofy Fourth of July accessories. Looking back probably not my hippest moment, but very patriotic nonetheless.

IMG_9913   And the final step of course is to put in on and give it a good twirl. IMG_9923 IMG_9925 IMG_9926

Oh yeah. That will do.
Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and had a fabulous holiday! xxoo Priscilla

 

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