Circle Table Cloth to Circle Skirt

I've been looking for a winter skirt for a while now. Ever since my other one got completely covered in burs and I don't have the patience to pick them all out. But I couldn't find one that was casual and flowy. But I did find this table cloth, a circular table cloth. So I thought I'd see how easy it was to make a circle skirt from a circle table cloth. It might not come up that often in life that you are in possession of a circular table cloth and are in need of a circular skirt but I thought I'd show the step anyway, just in case.

For maximium ease and maximum recycling I used the elastic waistband off these old yoga pants. (These had a proper elastic in a casing, the fold over type might not work as well, especially with heavy skirt material like this.) So here are my supplies, one circular table cloth and one pair of old yoga pants:


Now measure your waist, wherever you want it to sit and add 2 inches. Now divide that number by 2 pi or 6.28. And now you have the radius you want. (Since circumference = 2 pi r.) (My waist was 31 inches so added to to use 33 inches and divided by 6.28 to get a radius of 5.25 inches.)

Now fold the table cloth into 4 like so:

And use a ruler to draw several points at a distance of your radius number (5.25 inches in my case) from the point.


The dots will make an arc, now cut out that arc.

You can quickly try it on now to make sure you did it right, it should slip on very easily at this point. Now cut off the waist band of your pants, trim off a little extra to make sure you leave the casing intact.


Next step: pin the skirt to the elastic. Do this on the right side of the table cloth material. The skirt material should be bunching up, do your best to make it bunched up evenly. I found this easy to do if I put the first 2 pins in at the farthest points of the waistband and tablecloth and then kept dividing the distances in half for both materials, if that makes any sense.

Now sew. Use a wide 3 step zig zag stitch to keep the waist stretchy. Try to pull the elastic taut against the fabric as you go. This will ensure even bunching.


It should look like this:

And will look like this if you flip the elastic up. You could definitely just leave it like this and be done. I didn't because they totally mismatch and because my table cloth material is quite prone to fraying.

Now flip the elastice over to the inside of the skirt.
And sew around the waistband again to encase all your raw edges. Use a 3 step zig zag stitch again. It's not so important to pull the elastic tight this time.


And you're done. I also added a pocket made out of the circle I cut out. I think I will make a pact right now to always add pockets to things that I sew for myself. Why not? Here I am modelling my skirt.

If you're into a slimming look definitely don't choose a thick fabric like mine. But for me, I like it. And it is super warm, especially because I like to wear it with my wool longjohns. Here I am wearing it out in the snow.