Vintage tablecloths and bed sheets are a great fabric to use for sewing a circle skirt, unless you’re trying to sew your kid a circle skirt from an old Charlie Brown sheet. If you use the traditional, easy-peasy way to sew a circle skirt, then Charlie Brown will be upside down on half the skirt–boo! Directional fabrics, including children’s novelty sheets, require a slightly different, and only a little more complicated, method to sew a circle skirt with nothing upside-down. Here’s how to make your kid a circle skirt where Charlie Brown ALWAYS faces the right way: Although circle skirts are typically so easy to sew that no pattern is required, you’ll want to go ahead and make yourself a paper pattern if you’re sewing a directional, novelty print, because this will allow you to piece your skirt however you need to preserve the graphic’s direction. To make the pattern: Next » Using this pattern pieces, you can fussy cut directional fabric in several ways:
Folding the fabric in half and putting one side of the pattern piece against the fold will allow you to cut out half the skirt at once. The direction of the fabric will be perfect in the middle of each piece, and will gradually make a ninety-degree shift to each edge. Folding the fabric in half AND folding the pattern piece in half and putting one side of the pattern piece against the fold will allow you to cut out one-fourth of the skirt at once. The direction of the fabric will be perfect in the middle, and will only shift 45 degrees to each side. Folding the pattern piece in quarters but leaving the fabric unfolded means that you will have to cut out eight pieces for your skirt, but will allow you to fussy cut each panel so that the directionality is nearly perfect on each piece.
Piece the panels of the skirt together, finishing each seam as you go. To finish the waist with an elastic waistband, cut a piece of elastic about 1″ smaller than the waist measurement (this length actually depends on how the wearer prefers the waist to fit–snug or loose?). You can make an easy casing for the waist using bias tape, but I actually like to fold the raw edge of the waist over to the inside and baste it down, then zig-zag stitch the elastic directly to this hem. Stitch the elastic together into a circle before you begin, then mark both the elastic and the skirt’s waist with pins at the quarters, pin the elastic and skirt together at the quarters, and stretch the elastic as you sew to fit the waist–it will magically gather as you go. To finish the skirt’s bottom hem, you can again use bias tape, or a simple double-folded seam. And that’s how to sew your kid a Charlie Brown circle skirt in which Charlie Brown never has to stand on his head!
