Thursday, April 12, 2012

¡Folklorico Skirt!




I entered another contest. The challenge was to remix The Circle Skirt pattern from MADE. Well in my opinion the mother of all circle skirts is the Folklorico Dancer skirt. It's not one but TWO full circles sewn together! Here it is folded in HALF!


See! Las awesomenesas! Okay that's not really Spanish. Before you start you should know that construction is SUPER easy! It's adding yards and yards of ribbon that takes so long. This little girl skirt started with 2 circles 42" wide. The hemline: 8 yards. Yes, 24 FEET baby.
And now, here's what I did.
I read that pattern on MADE that I mentioned before. I cut out 2 circles. Figure the elastic like she says. Cut out the waist opening using HALF the measurement she says - really tiny holes for waists ok?
Lay them out right sides together.
THEN cut those chicas from the outside to the inner hole. Make sure you open those circles


Warning: you chain quilters and stack and slashers put there! Dont be clever and not open the circles up all the way. They get tricky so save yourself trouble and lay them out on the dirty carpet.
Now pin down each side of the cut. Sew them up!
Add ribbons and lace to make sort of concentric circles on the skirt.
How much ribbon do I need?
Ah, yes - Pi and all that eh?

1st: Find the radius of the skirt measurement (original center before you cut it - to the edge). We'll call that (r).

2nd: Length of bottom edge of the skirt is:
12.6 x (r)

3rd: Already have some ribbon?
Measure the length of it. We'll call that (L).

[(L) / 12.6] - 2" = how far from the original center your ribbon should go.

You might find that you have enough to go 6" down from the center and if that looks good, use up that ribbon! If not dig up something longer.

Add the elastic waist band like Dana tells you. Now go rock some Cinco De Mayo!