[Costumes] Viola Progress Part 2: The Skirt!

Viola's skirt was pretty simple, although I seem to have issues measuring my own waist and it ALWAYS ends up too big. Additionally, I made it way longer than I wanted, but that was a much easier fix.

In progress Skirt

The big part of the skirt is that it's a circle skirt. Circle skirts are pretty straight forward.
1) measure your waist
2) measure how long you want it to be
3) find the radius of your waist's circumference (what you measured). C = d*pi. D = diameter, Radius = 2 *d, therefore, C = 2*r*pi.
4) fold your fabric in half, making sure you have 2*(radius+length) of fabric. Find the center
5) draw tick marks out from the center at the distance of the radius and the radius plus the length.
6) make a semi-circle through each set of tick marks.

Finished skirt

That might be fairly difficult to really figure out via text, so here's a tutorial. The method for making a circle skirt is the same for kids and adults, so don't worry about the pictures of kids.

Up close of the ruffles

After I had the circle skirt portion done, it was time for ruffles. SO MANY RUFFLES. I cut the bottom layer at 6 inches and the top at 3 inches, down the length of the fabric. Then I sewed their lengths together at short edges.  Next I rolled all the hems. My rolled hem foot and I are now on a break after spending so much time together. I don't want to see him for a good long while.

After that, I put all the hemmed pieces through the ruffler. The top layer was ruffled straight to the skirt. The second was sewn on afterwards by machine.  I also attached a waist band with a hook and eye.

These are actually the cape ruffles, but it gives you a better idea of the edges. 

In the end, it was still a little long, but as the ruffles are attached, I couldn't really shorten it well. But as it was going under a corset, I could kind of shove it up and the corset would hold it where I wanted.

Remember me saying I have a problem measuring my own waist though, it was way loose. I didn't WANT to put a zipper in, but to get it to fit right, I had to. Curse my big hips. I cut it down the side, took it up a bit and put in an invisible zipper. I felt better when I looked at reference images and saw that they at least designed her with a seam in the back.

So that's the skirt. It would have been a much more painful process without the rolled hem foot and the ruffler, so keep in mind what specialized feet for your machine can do for you.