[intro music]
Hello! So today I'm going to teach you all how to make your very own "half circle skirt".
Now what is the difference between this and a "circle skirt", you ask?
Well, you use *half* the amount of fabric.
What I've found with full circle skirts is that when you're wearing them out and about and if there's
like, a *little* bit of breeze that day, your skirt just *woop!*
Blows right up!
And you flash everyone.
So you always have to wear shorts underneath.
And you have to hold it down all the time.
So I've actually found that HALF circle skirts work a LOT better.
And I actually like the shape of them a lot better. They're still quite full skirts,
But they're not as big and dramatic as full circle skirts.
So anyway, I'm going to teach you how to make them today!
First things first, we need to make a pattern! Now these are the two pieces of fabric that
you will need to cut out. First, we’ll work on the skirt.
To make a pattern for the skirt, you will need to make some measurements!
The first measurement is your waist, divided by pi (which is 3.14).
As an example, my waist is 30 inches, divide this by 3.14 and you get 9.55.
So, my first measurement is 9.55 inches.
So I’m going to draw this out onto my pattern paper. From the corner of the paper, I’m
first drawing a bunch of marks 9.55 inches out, then I connect those dots into a quarter-circle
that looks like this.
Then you need to make an outer circle measurement. First, figure out how long you want your skirt
to be. I want mine to be about 19 inches. Then subtract from this whatever width you’re
going to use for the waistband. I want a 3 inch waistband so I subtract 3 inches, which
gives me 16. Then, add your inner circle measurement. Mine
was 9.55. This gives me a total of 25.55.
You should also add about ½ an inch for the hem, so I’m just going to round this up
to 26 inches.
Then, also from the corner of the paper, I draw this outer circle measurement.
Then, I cut my pattern out.
and it looks like this!
Next, fold your fabric in half, right sides together.
And yeah, I know the clothes I’m wearing are pretty weird here – they’re my comfortable
sewing clothes, don’t judge me.
Now, place your pattern piece on the fabric, with one straight edge on the FOLD of the fabric.
Pin the piece of paper onto the fabric, and then cut around your pattern.
When you unfold it, you should have this half-circle shape.
Now we also need to cut out a waistband from the remaining fabric.
To make your waistband, take your waist measurement and add 3 inches.
And this is the length of your waistband.
Then, decide how wide you want your waistband to be,
And double this measurement.
And this is your waistband width.
Now, this is a slightly different
method of making a waistband then what I've shown in my videos before,
So, right sides together, place the waistband
onto the inner circle of the skirt like this.
Line up the edges like this, and then pin the waistband on. Then, attach the waistband
to the skirt by using a straight stitch, just like this.
Then hem the unsewn edge of the waistband. Fold the edge of the waistband over ½ an
inch, just like this, and then sew right along the length.
To finish off the waistband, fold it down, with the hemmed edge lining up with the stitches
that you made when you attached your waistband to your skirt. Pin this together, and sew around the waistband
to completely attach it to the skirt. Make sure you’re catching the fabric of the skirt
underneath your stitches. You should also use a thread that matches your
fabric – I didn’t, but that was so you could all see where I was stitching in this
video.
Then, you’ll notice that you have raw edges on either side of your skirt. If you want
to finish this off professionally, you can either overlock these edges, or, if you have
room to do this
fold this edge in once, then twice,
then sew over the top. Do this on both sides of your skirt.
Now, fold your skirt in half, right sides together, just like this.
Line those edges up and pin them together, then, get your zipper and line it up next
to the skirt. Make a mark where the zipper ends. Below this
mark, you will do normal-length straight stitches, but above this mark you will need to do what
are called basting stitches. These are very long stitches used to temporarily hold your
fabric together.
From your stitching, you will have created a seam that looks like this. Fold the seam
open. You can also iron the seam here to hold it open. Then, place your zipper onto your
seam like this, so that the teeth of the zipper line up with the middle of your seam.
Then, you will need to sew your zipper onto your skirt like this.
If you have one, a zipper foot, which looks like this, makes sewing zippers really easy.
Then, carefully cut through those basting stitches that you made earlier, in order to
free your zipper!
Now all we need to do is to hem the bottom of the skirt. I always hear that you’re
supposed to let a circle skirt hang for a day or two before hemming the bottom, because
the grain of the fabric will cause the hem to drop in certain spots and not others. Or... something.
But, this is the skirt 2 days later, and there really isn't a noticeable difference. If there is, even
out the bottom with a pair of scissors, and then continue on.
Now, onto the hemming.There
are three methods you can use for hemming the bottom of your skirt.
If you have an overlocker, go around the entire outer-circle edge with the overlocker, then
fold the overlocked edge up inside the skirt, and sew across it using a straight stitch,
all the way around the outer circle.
So you can get yourself some pinking shears. These special scissors prevent fabric from fraying. When
you’re cutting out the outside circle on your skirt, use this scissors instead. Then, when
hemming, simply fold the edge over about 1 inch like this, and using a straight stitch,
stopping every 10 inches or so to readjust, carefully sew all the way around your outer
circle. Method 3 is if you don’t own pinking shears
– you can make something called a rolled hem. This is when you fold the fabric over
once, then twice, then like in the other methods, sew along all the way around the outer circle.
And hopefully you should now have a finished half circle-skirt.
Thank you so much for watching!
Make sure to subscribe to my channel and check out my other videos for more DIY projects and inspiration.
See you next time, bye!