In a previous post I covered ‘Making The Most of Your Full Circle Skirt‘ and you may want to take a peep at that before or after reading this post.
I have been asked for some ‘pattern help’ and my reader wants to know how to lengthen a full circle skirt. It’s not as easy as it may first appear.
Full circle skirts take up a lot of fabric, so you may well be limited to the extra you can add to the hem, by the length and width of the fabric you have. It may be simpler to use a tailoring technique and mark on the extra length on your fabric with chalk after pinning the pattern down to get the most length you can. My blocks are made as long as I can make them for a 150 cm (59″) wide fabric, but what if you need a longer skirt?
The other way to gain more length, if your fabric is not wide enough is to have more seams, but this is not ideal for full circle skirts as you are using all the different grains of the fabric, warp, weft and bias and the skirt will hang differently at each one, this is covered in detail in the previous post mentioned above.
My block sheet is planned as above, the shape is designed to be cut twice on a fold, once for CB (Center Back) and once for CF (Center Front). This means 2 side seams, one containing a zip opening (preferably an invisible zip).
If you measure the block the side seam length is just under 60 cm (23 5/8″) and with the seam allowance you need to add and the allowance for the waist shaping then the skirt piece fits nicely onto 150 cm (59 1/16″) wide fabric folded in half.
Lengthening the full circle skirt
If you choose to lengthen the skirt, by measuring equally down from the hem at right angles and re drawing the hem curve – as you can see below the skirt now no longer fits on the 150 cm wide fabric when placed on the fold line!
Your only choice, if your fabric is not wide enough, is to then have a seam at CB and CF – not nice at all and the skirt would not hang well, so a longer skirt needs a much wider fabric and also will take up over 3 meters in length! It can be quite expensive to make!
As long as you know all this you can make a choice and look at some other options, buy fabric wider than 150 cm or look at the design of your skirt and place a yoke at the waist line to add length or perhaps a frill at the hem.
Its always useful to take your pattern section to the fabric shop with you and give it a try on the fabric of your choice.
I hope this has helped and saved some frustration!
Happy pattern cutting,
Nicola
