If you are looking for an easy project to work on, a circle skirt is a simple and quick item of clothing to make - and the bonus of a circle skirt is that it can be very versatile depending on what fabrics you use to create it. At Calico Laine, we have tons of fabrics that you could use to create one - for example, if you want a light and floaty skirt to wear in the summertime, why not take a look at our Rose & Hubble cotton prints or our Blades linen fabrics? For a more formal occasion, one of my personal favourites to use is our exquisite duchess satin, which looks fantastic when paired with a 1950s style petticoat underneath. In today's blog, I'll be walking you through how to make a circle skirt, perfect for any occasion you can think of. You will need: - 3.5 metres of 45" wide fabric - 1 reel of thread (we recommend our Gutermann Sew-All threads or our Moon threads) - 1 10" zip (to match your skirt fabric) - A flexible tape measure - A pack of dressmaking pins - Your waist measurement - Your desired skirt length - Some iron-on interfacing (it must be at least as long as your waist measurement) - Some bias binding (it must be at least as long as your waist measurement and match your fabric) Step One Using your flexible tape measure, measure your waist in inches and divide by 8 (for example, a 36" waist would result in 4.5"). You will also need to decide what length you would like your skirt to be - I have chosen to make my skirt 25 inches long, but feel free to substitute with your own skirt length measurement for the rest of this tutorial. Step Two Lay your fabric down flat. Starting from one end, mark 26" along the selvedge edge - it is important to add this extra inch to your skirt length so that we have 1" to use for the hem of the skirt. After this measurement of 26", mark the 1/8 of the waist measurement that you worked out in Step One, plus an extra 1/2" (so for my chosen measurement, it would be 5" instead of 4.5"). From the end of this 5", mark another 5", then another 26". You should now have four measurements along the selvedge edge. Step Three Using the centre measurement as a start point, mark several points outwards at 5" with your pins. These should line up with the previous 5" measurements you made in Step Two to form a small semi-circle. Step Four Using the semi-circle you just marked out as a new starting point, mark several points outwards at 26". This will create a much larger semi-circle and will line up with the previous 26" measurements you marked earlier. Step Five Cut along the semi-circles that you have marked. You can now use this cut piece as a pattern to make the other half of the skirt, so lay it flat on your fabric and pin into place. Carefully cut around it so that you have two semi-circle pieces. Sew together on one side along the straight edge (I like to use french seams so that there are no raw edges showing). You should now have an complete circle of fabric with one side un-sewn. Step Six Cut a strip from your fabric measuring your waist measurement plus 2", and twice as wide as you would like the waistband to be, plus 1". Fold in half and iron flat. Cut your iron-on interfacing to be as long as your waistband and half as wide. Iron onto one half of your waistband. Step Seven Pin your waistband around your circle skirt's waist and sew into place. Use bias binding to cover the raw edges and sew. Step Eight Sew your zip onto one side of the un-sewn seam of your skirt. Check for fit and take in if necessary, then sew the zip to the other side of the un-sewn seam and sew the rest of the seam up (You can use a french seam here too to cover your raw edges). Hem your skirt around the bottom edge or use more bias binding if you prefer. Your circle skirt is now finished! What is your favourite fabric to make a circle skirt from? Leave us a comment or a photo of your finished creation on our Facebook page - we love to see what our customers come up with!