Wire hangers may not be suitable for actually hanging your clothes, but for internal structure they’re actually pretty great. The wire in wire hangers is quite strong, malleable enough to be formed into shape but not so malleable that it’s easily warped once in place, and can be cut with a sturdy pair of wire cutters. Using nothing but wire hangers, hot glue, and duct tape, I created a hoop skirt for a garment that I’m making my kiddo to wear in this year’s Trashion/Refashion Show in our town. Here’s how:
- Freecycle yourself some wire hangers. With one email, I scored wire hangers from someone who gets a lot of dry cleaning done, the manager of a thrift store, and a couple of other friendly random people.
- Untwist and straighten each hanger. I used both pliers and my fingers, and yep–my fingers were sore the next day! Next »
- Do some math. The beauty of making your own hoop is that you can create it in any shape that you’d like. I needed a hoop that would follow the flare of a circle skirt, and would reach from the bottom of the garment’s bodice to my kiddo’s knees. Here’s the math that I used: I measured the circumference of the dress’ bodice, just before the skirt begins its flare. My kiddo isn’t going to sit in this dress, so I can begin the hoop here. I calculated the radius of this circle. I formed a wire circle for the bottom of the hoop, overlapping the ends of two pieces of wire hanger and securing them with duct tape whenever I needed to lengthen the wire. I calculated the radius of this circle. I subtracted these two radii; the answer is side b of a right triangle. Side a of the right triangle is the distance from the bottom of the bodice to my kiddo’s knees, where I want the skirt to end. Solve to find side c of the right triangle.
- Cut the wire to size. I created the bottom circle of the hoop back when I was doing my math, so all I still needed to do was create the top circle to match the circumference of the bodice, and to cut eight pieces of wire to equal side c of the right triangle.
- Glue the wires together to form the hoop. Eyeballing the measurements to keep the wires roughly equidistant, I glued one end of each wire to the bottom hoop, then glued the other end to the top hoop.
- Wrap the ends of the wire with duct tape. Hot glue can be brittle, and I don’t want any wires to possibly come loose and poke my kiddo, especially since I’m going to be sewing this hoop into an underskirt and won’t be able to repair it later, so I wrapped each glued join in duct tape, just to be safe. If you don’t want to sew your hoop into your garment, you can sew it into an underskirt that can be worn underneath your garment, or you can attach it to garters and a belt. But unlike this hoop, make sure that YOUR hoop begins below your butt. IF you want to be able to sit down in it, that is!
