A Tutorial On Drafting The Circular Skirt - The Easy Way - Sew Daily

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As you move beyond beginner sewing, your creativity will spark with ideas for new garments. A classic full circle skirt might become one of your favorites—timeless, glamorous, and versatile for any season. As your skills grow, drafting your own patterns is a natural next step, and a circle skirt is the perfect place for you to start. In this tutorial, Rhonda Buss of Rhonda’s Creative Life shows you how easy it is to make one for woven fabrics, complete with a waistband and zipper for style and function.

In this circular skirt tutorial Rhonda Buss of Rhonda’s Creative Life shows you how easy it is to make your own. This circular skirt tutorial is for wovens and a waist band and zipper will be needed in order for you to get in and out of the skirt (helpful!).

Circle Skirt Examples

So, now let’s have Rhonda take it away. Drafting The Circular Skirt The circular skirt is a wonderful pattern to draft. It’s a pattern that is very straight forward and incredibly easy to draft. Only 2 measurements are needed for this skirt, the waist measurement and the length measurement. This skirt can be drafted in 4 different versions. Your choice will depend on how full you would like your skirt to be. Below are examples of the 4 versions.

As you can see, the above skirt falls in many graceful folds. This is the Full Circular Skirt. This skirt is one complete circle.

The skirt above still has many grace folds, but is not quite as full. This is the 3/4 Circular Skirt.

The above skirt is still rather full but has does not hang with all the graceful folds of the full or the 3/4 circular skirts. This skirt is the Half Circular Skirt.

The final skirt pictured above is the 1/4 Circular Skirt. As you can see, it fits very close to the hips.

Drafting a Circle Skirt

At one time, drafting a circular skirt was explained using pi. No need to panic, no reason to try and remember your grade school math!! The equations for determining the radius of your skirt are quite simple. They are as follows:

• Full Circular Skirt: Waist Measurement minus 1″ and then multiplied by 1/6.
• 3/4 Circular Skirt: Waist Measurement minus 1″ and then multiplied by 1/5.
• 1/2 Circular Skirt: Waist Measurement minus 1″ and then multiplied by 1/3.
• 1/4 Circular Skirt: Waist Measurement multiplied by 2/3. Please note that with the 1/4 circular skirt you will not subtract 1″ from the waist measurement.

As an example, we will draft a full circular skirt using a 25″ waist measurement.

Begin by subtracting the 1″ from your waist measurement. The result will be 24. Multiply 24 by 1/6 or divide by 6 and the result will be 4.

Determine your desired length of your skirt. On your paper, draw a right angle that is longer than your desired length. For my example, I would like the finished length of my skirt to be 25″ so I have drawn my lines 30″ long. This will give me plenty of room to draw in my waist and then the hem of my skirt.

From the apex (the area where the 2 lines intersect) measure out on your lines 4″. This measurement was determined from the formula we used to determine the radius of our waist measurement for a full circular skirt. Holding your tape measure at the apex of your 2 lines, measure out 4″ from 1 line to the other. This will form the waist of your skirt.

From the waistline that you drew in, not the apex of the lines as for the waist, measure down the desired length of your skirt from 1 line to the other line. This will be your hemline.

The final pattern is below. Please be sure to add seam allowances to the waistline and the side seam. The center front should be on the fold and for the full circular skirt, you will cut 2. If your fabric is not wide enough for the center front to be on the fold, you will need to add seam allowance to the center front as well and then you would cut 4.

Below are examples of circular skirts. The first skirt is a full circular skirt. As you can see it is quite full.

The next skirt has an interesting detail. This skirt was made using a border print. It is quite easy to do.

An important aspect to remember about a circular skirt is that it is necessary to allow the skirt to hang for at least 24 hours before you hem it. As you can see in the picture below, the hem is very uneven. Once you have allowed the skirt to hang for at least 24 hours, you can then mark your hem, cut off the excess and hem the skirt.

Below is an evening gown made with a simple bodice and a half circle skirt.

Below is a picture of me in the dress.

A pocket was added to the side seam. It makes the perfect place to hide a tissue! You can find more information on this dress here. In order to give the skirt a little body, I added 2 layers of tulling underneath the skirt.

To hem a circular skirt, I like to use 2″ wide bias tape. A lovely touch if you have enough fabric is to create your own bias tape from the fabric of your skirt.

I do hope that you’ll give one of the circular skirts a try. Once you do, you’ll never buy another circular skirt pattern! For more drafting ideas, visit my blog, Rhonda’s Creative Life

Originally published March 14th, 2013; updated on September 8, 2025.

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