French Seam Studio: 360° Degrees of Separation

There is something fascinating about a circular skirt. The way it spirals when a women twirls and spins, the movement the fullness creates and the fall of the skirt as it pleats into organ pipe folds. It’s especially fascinating when worn by an expert belly dancer! Ozlem a teacher and performer at Mind Body Dance here in Melbourne showed me how it’s done when she put this beautiful flamenco skirt on and effortlessly demonstrated the dance that she will perform while wearing it.

This is a full circle skirt with a 130mm wide yoke on a 30mm wide waistband. The waistband has a 25mm wide elastic encased into it, a hook and eye closure that overlap by 1cm at the centre back (overlaps left wearing side over right), and a 120mm zipper in the centre back. The length of the skirt from the yoke is 630mm. There are 16 frills attached to the hem of the skirt (8 on the front skirt, and 8 on the back skirt) the frill is 160mm wide. These frills are cut as ½ circles. With good pattern engineering and a great marker this is a very efficient use of fabric with little waste.

In Grafis, call Skirt block 10; into part 001 and make active the basic block. Drag the lever to position 1.0 for a full circle and right click mouse for more options. Turn on measurements and I’ve chosen for this style Hip Curving (Y/N) 15mm. I had to later alter the fit of this skirt over the hip area to raise the hemline by make the yoke narrower (these changes are not reflected here). Also it’s a good idea to organise and name your parts at this point so you know what pattern pieces are needed for this garment i.e. Skirt Front, Skirt Back, Frill, Yoke, Waistband (label waistband with elastic requirements, width and length to be cut).

Yoke Development

Using the curve tool I place the style lines for the front and back yoke. Insert the yoke pattern pieces into a new part. Use the separate tool to tidy up the lines and then transformation with click line as mirror line on Centre front line to complete the front yoke. The Back Yoke has a 15mm CB seam allowance for the zip. Complete the pattern with text, notches, grain line and seam allowance of 10mm.

Front Yoke and Back Yoke Pattern Pieces

The waistband is constructed using the waist lines from the style development, inserting them into a new part and then generate a z value. Z01=gl+gl waist lines skirt front and back. Use point and line tool to draw line, remembering that Z01 is only ½ the waist measurement.

Back with Zip, Waistband and Yoke

Waistband Development using Z Values

Next, set a Raster of 8 on the perimeter of the ½ circle to calculate and make the frills. Construct a ½ circle with the distance measured between the raster 2 points on the perimeter (hem) of the circle. (336mm) Insert the perimeter and raster points into the frill part.

Frill Development from Raster Points

Define a z value as follows; z01=gl*2/(2*Pi) this formula is the radius of the inner circle. Use line tool to create a guide line. Use circle tool to create the inner circle with z01 in the radius field. To define the outer circle (hem line of frill); add a z value to the table as follows; z02=160+z01. 160mm is the width of frill. Finish pattern piece with seam allowance, grain line, label and number to be cut 16.