DIY Hi-Lo Circle Skirt

Some time ago, while I was perusing ye' olde Joann's, I came across something truly magical. I was walking down that random aisle of just.. things and junk where half of it is miscellaneous sale stuff and the other half is just... uncategorized  craft items? You know that aisle? And something caught my eye:

First thought: Is that plaid I spy?
Second thought: WAIT IS THAT FLANNEL??

Good news, self. It both.

They were just these 3 yard rolls of flannel that were only 5 bucks each, so I got two of them. Fast forward to present day and I finally made a thing:

I thought about making just another regular circle skirt because let's be real- you can never have enough of those. Or at least that's just what I keep telling myself so that I can sleep better at night. This time though, I decided to try out a hi-lo style and I'm per' excited about the result. So here is how it went!

I started off by rolling out my fabric just to see the dimensions and I made a paper pattern. For how to make the paper pattern and do your measurements, you can refer to my post about making circle skirts.

I then [with the help of Kitty] cut out just one quarter of my skirt. How I did this was instead of folding my fabric at all, I laid my quarter-skirt pattern out on just one layer of fabric and cut it out. No folding or anything required.

After cutting out the one quarter, I proceeded to flip and lay my pattern down again and cut out a second quarter. These two regular pieces are what I used for the high front of the skirt.

For the back of my skirt, the "lo" part of the hi-lo equation, I started out by tracing out my quarter-pattern twice right next to each other, flipping halfway through the process so that I traced out a half circle instead of just the quarter circles like I did for the front of the skirt. Now, instead of cutting the exact shape of my pattern, I cut it so that the back angled down further, so that it would create a low effect.

I forgot to photograph this part, but I assembled the skirt by just sewing my two front quarters together and then sewing them to the back half.

With my remaining fabric, I cut out a waistband that was about four inches wide by my waist+2 inches [actually, I think I only did it about an inch and a half bigger than my waist, but two inches is a safe bet if you're worried about it not fitting].

Like with all my waistbands, I folded the fabric in half and ironed it down.

I then opened it back up and folded the edges halfway to my center crease.

I attached the waistband to the skirt by encasing the top of the skirt fabric inside the little refolded waistband and running two lines of straight stitches around the whole deal. I should also note that I cut a line for the zipper in the middle back of the skirt before I attached the waistband.

To finish the skirt off, all I did was insert a zipper, make a matching bandanna for Kitty, and just like that we are matching wonder babies.

Now here, have a baby bird pose. Because we all needed that.

And some sweet hi-lo action. I should really stop taking photos at awful times of day when there is no light left. Shame on you Becca. Stop bringing dishonor to your family.

But anyway, there we have it! This skirt was pretty simple to make, and nothing beats the feeling of being a girly lumberjack child [if you've never tried that aesthetic, I highly recommend it.].


Linkin' up:
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DIY Circle Skirt

Fun fact: I'm not a huge fan of wearing short skirts.
Additional fun fact: Most clothing stores that cater to people my age only sell short skirts.

You see my dilemma?

Therefore, along with refashioning, I've super gotten super into making my own skirts and dresses, and it's actually easier than you might think! I made two circle skirts at the end of the summer and have already worn them so much that I'm plotting to make like.... 87 more.

Circle skirts are just so much fun to wear and make. They're super easy to construct and they're perfect for twirling in. Not that I like to stand around in my living room and twirl around like an idiot in them. Nooo, no, def not me. Nah. For this first one, I found this red suiting fabric at Joann's and loved the color of it. It's less of a hoochie red and more of a deeper red, but either way, it's pretty fab.

I also made a second one out of black suiting fabric because suiting fabric is just... yes. Last time I was home my friend Carrie and I had a very deep conversation about our love of suiting fabric, so trust me. It's legit.

Interested in making your own? Because you should be. Because like I said-- prime twirling.

Well the best resource I found on constructing your own circle skirt can be found with the lovely Annika Victoria, and her tutorial can be found right here. I seriously love the stuff she makes so if you have never seen her site before, please check it out!!

I followed her tutorial pretty much throughout the whole process but with a few alterations here and there.

First things first, I laid out my fabric, folded it with selvages together, and then folded it again the other way just like in the tutorial. Naturally, Kitty apparated out of nowhere to lend his sewing expertise and critical judging eye.

Then, using chalk and a measuring tape, I marked in my measurements. My waist measurement came out to about 4.25 inches and for my length I did about 22 inches. If you don't know what measurements to use, then there is also this handy dandy calculator which tells you what to do so you don't have to math yourself. Because everyone knows that no math is the best kind of math.

Also, whilst cutting it my skirt out, I found that the center piece makes a great hat/cat-judgement blocker.

The only thing that I really did differently from Annika's tutorial was the waist band. Instead of cutting one piece of fabric and folding it over, I cut two pieces that were about 2.5 inches tall and about an 1.5 inches bigger than my waist. I then did a straight stitch along one of the long edges.

And then I ironed it like so, pressing my seam inside and the two remaining edges up so that I could encase the raw edge of skirt, thus eliminating all raw edges. (Oh yeah, and fabric switch here because I only remembered to photograph the black and not the red at this point.)

Then instead of just doing one straight stitch along the bottom hem, I actually did two rows of stitches. I found that this actually made my bottom hem sit flatter.

And it's just as simple as that! Yay for not having to wear skirts that are so short that every passerby gets a free show... 

So don't be surprised if I make about a thousand more of these because *spoiler alert* I bought a lot of suiting fabric (and other fabric, to be fair) when I was home on black Friday. Get psyched!

(Pssssst. Also.Those shoes are a DIY. Just saying.)

Linkin' up:

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