DIY Velvet Circle Skirt Tutorial

FIND THE UPDATED TUTORIAL HERE. You want to make yourself a velvet circle skirt?? Well read right on! Firstly, here's two formula's you need to have down to make a circle skirt (they'll make sense in a second, I promise): Got it? Good! Here's what you do: 1. Cutout your large circle from your fabric. I get to cheat because I have a table which is perfectly round. If you don't have a round table though, this is how to measure your circle: What size should my circle be? 2. You also need to cutout your waist circle (smaller circle) from the centre of the larger circle. For this, it's good to use a pattern: And then place it onto the centre of your larger circle, pin, and cutout. To get the radius of this smaller circle, you need to divide your waist measurement by 2 x pi. For example, here is what my measurements look like for my waist (27 in) and desired skirt length of 16 in. 3. Now you need hem the outside circle! Circle hems are a little tricky. You do end up with a little bit of ruffling, like this: But it's hardly noticeable, and this is the easiest way to hem your skirt. To hem, you just need to go along the entire outer edge, folding up about half an inch as you go along, lifting the presser foot and readjusting as you go. 4. Waistband (I accidentally stopped taking photos of the black velvet skirt here, so I'll continue here with photos from another circle skirt that I made.) Cut your waistband to about 5 in x your waist measurement + 5 in (ie. my waistband was 5 in by 32 in).  Fold it in half (the wrong way around) and pin together. Sew entirely up one side. Then turn it inside out. Attach to the inner circle of your skirt on the FRONT of the skirt (pin first to ensure the correct placement!) Sew along the entire length of the inner circle, so that that waistband is attached! 5. Zipper/button insertion. If the velvet you used had enough stretch, and you can fit it on without too much difficulty, you can totally skip this step, sew together your waistband, cut off the excess waistband and you're done! If the fabric doesn't have much stretch though, you will need to insert buttons/a zipper following the instructions below. Now you will have a bit of overlap on the waistband. Where this overlap occurs, draw a line vertically downwards either the length of your zip (if you will be inserting a zipper), or the length you desire if you want to add buttons (you'll know when you've got the right length when you can fit it on over your hips!) Follow instructions on how to insert a zipper here, or if you're inserting buttons, fold back both sides down the cut, hem, and insert buttons following tutorial here. Hooray! Now you've made a circle skirt (and I hope I didn't make it seem too complicated, it's really one of the easiest skirts to make!) Check out another circle skirt tutorial here (youtube!) for some inspiration/help! Have a gorgeous day! xxx Annika