Circle Skirt Variations

Once you understand how to draft a circle skirt, why not experiment with some variations?

You can draft a handkerchief hem like this. You simply draft a circle skirt and square off the outer circle.




A full circle (or square) skirt has all grains in it. Lengthwise, Crosswise, and Bias. That can make it tricky to hem.

Perhaps you'd like a straight grain skirt, and you're not a Spanish dancer so you'd prefer the fullness of just a half circle (and a half circle skirt is still very full.) How would you do that?

Gores!

Draft a half circle skirt by doubling your waist measurement. Divide half the resulting half circle into 6 equal sections. I would add seam allowances to the gore piece afterwards to avoid confusion.

Note how the grain lines are straight down the center of each pattern piece.

For a drapier skirt you could cut gores on the bias. However, to balance the bias, you would need an even number of gores with center front and back seams, and an 8 gore skirt would be preferable.


Note: If bias is unbalanced, it will stretch more in one direction than the other b/c lengthwise and crosswise grains differ. That is why, when you have a skirt that is bias, but the entire front is cut in one piece, over time it gets longer on one side. Were there a center front seam, and the sides balanced, it would stretch evenly.

When you cut bias pieces, corresponding left and rights must mirror each other in the layout, like left and right hands.

If these are the right and left center front pieces, this is the wrong way to lay them out. There is no point in the seam between them, they may as well be cut as one. This will be unbalanced.
This, rather, is the correct way - the pieces are mirror images. These bias pieces will balance each other.
Note: Mirroring of pattern pieces is also necessary for other bias pieces, such as undercollars. That is why there is a center back seam in an undercollar.

Of course whole books could be written on bias. Unfortunately, no one has. If only Madame Vionnet had put her expertise to paper.... Maybe bias is so fluid that it just can't be captured in that way.

More on bias, and gores, here.

Next geometric post - circular ruffles.