DISCLAIMER: long-ass hoop skirt tutorial
With not nearly enough pictures *cough--sorry*
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THIS SKIRT.
LOOK AT IT. |
Once deciding to cosplay Ice Queen, I decided there was no way I was going to cosplay it without a hoop skirt.
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THIS.
Is my attempt.
And yes, I'm a bleach blonde :) |
Some tutorials I found particularly helpful were
yiji's tutorial on from Deviantart,
thedreamstress' tutorial, and
TheLacedAngel_TSMP's tutorial on instructables.
Yes, these are the very first three sites that google gives you when searching "hoop skirt tutorial" and for good reason.
Nonetheless, in the end, I decided to combine a few different techniques to make my hoop skirt.
Materials: 100 ft of poly tubing (or poly piping) (home depot), two white, thrifted (and washed) bed sheets, white yarn, a yarn needle, ruler, some kind of waistband drawstring, ribbon, and drafting paper of sorts
TOTAL COST: $15-16
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| ^ mad photo skillz ^ |
1. Draw out how you wanted it to look on your proportions (I used 4":1" scale), using the height as the measurement from your waist to the floor (with shoes on) (originally 45" for me) and make horizontal lines for where you wanted the hoops to go. Generally, you use more hoops where the curve is more defined and fewer in the less defined areas. Also note the widths in between each hoop, again, less space in more defined areas, and more space in less defined areas.
(I may have gone overboard with the hoops. Way, way overboard. In the end, I removed 4 of the hoops I planned, leaving a whomping 11 hoops. WAY more than most hoop skirts. I will mention more about how this turned out later.)
The waist width is the diameter of my waist, (waist measurement (aka circumference) / π). I then did some more mathy things, of which I am very proud.
Using a ruler, measure the lengths of each line on your draft and multiply each measurement by 4 (as scale was 4":1") so you end with the diameters of each hoop in real world proportions. Each diameter was then multiplied by π, leaving you with the circumferences of each hoop.
2. As you may have noticed, the white layer on the skirt was not gathered like in many other tutorials.
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| do you see the difference? |
My goal here was to test out the pattern for the overskirt and make and make sure it would flat over the hoops.
To do this, more mathy things had to be done.
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pattern for 1/8 of the skirt
the axis and horizontal lines are kind visible if you squint
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If you do not have huge paper, you can either tape a bunch together or do it in smaller scale.
To make this, first make a vertical axis using the distances between each hoop as markers. Then divide each circumference you found in step 1 by 8 to get the width of each horizontal bar.
From here you can either add 1 inch to each measurement to account for a 1/2 inch seam allowance on both sides, then draw the bars out and connect the sides
OR draw the bars using the measurements you have now, connect the outer edges of the bars, then add a 1/2 inch (or whatever you feel comfortable with) seam allowance
FOR NEWBIES: a seam allowance is the space you leave at the edge of a piece so there is room to sew the pieces together-- here is a better explanation.
Then cut out your wonderful pattern.
3. Cut out your corresponding fabric pieces For later reference when adding hoops, mark out on each piece where the hoop goes. You don't have to mark the entire bar, marking just the meeting point between each bar and the middle axis is fine. Then sew the pieces together to make a GINORMOUS skirt. NOTE: I used a sewing machine for this part and highly recommend you do too. Hand sewing is "possible," but a painful alternative. If you do not have a sewing machine, borrow a friend's machine. It will save you HOURS.
Almost done with the skirt, all you need is a waistband. For some reason, the first time around, I thought a very thick elastic waistband would work, but let it be known it probably won't. Especially if you have as many hoops as mine did. I ended up having to add a drawstring waistband after the hoops were attached which was absolutely ridiculous.
Drawstring waistband. Do it.
If you are comfortable sewing buttonholes, you can sew two in the top hem, then turn it over and sew it down to create a casing for the drawstring. If not, you can also sew a ribbon around the top , leaving space between the ends for the drawstring to come out.
4. You have your skirt, now HOOPS
First add up all the total circumferences and make sure it is LESS than 90 ft (this is where two of my original hoops were dropped due to lack of tubing and the reason for leaving the extra 15' will be explained soon). Then cut the lengths correspondingly-- hints on how to do this: use a measuring tape (obv) and put marks on small patches of duct tape at each point you plan to cut before cutting, to make sure you don't end up short)
At this point, I, the silly that I am, duct taped the ends of the tubes together and ended up with:
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but much less delicious.
(good god, i miss palmier pastries as a vegan.) |
Because the tubing was so tightly coiled in the packaging, it did NOT make beautiful, perfect circles like I expected. The taped parts inverted on the larger ones and protruded on the smaller ones. THUS in my moment to absolute clarity, I decided to deploy yet another hoop and instead, use it to create support for the other hoops.
THIS is where the extra 10' come into play.
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| LSP! LSP! LSP! |
Cut these feet into appropriate lengths for the hoops (smaller pieces for smaller hoops and bigger pieces for bigger hoops), and cut along the inner side, like the green line in the badly drawn diagram above. You will then end up with a tube with a slit along it. take one side of the slit and tuck into the other, so the tube will be able to fit into another tube.
Shove smaller cut pieces into the hoops and discover the magical circles that will follow!
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bitches be jealous of my circles.
and my bathroom selfies. |
5. Now, you have your hoops and skirt. You've done some pretty good work, so take a snack break if you haven't already done so a few times already.
6. If this process hasn't been tedious up till now, it is about to rot some brain cells. What you do now is mark even spaces on the hoops to attach to the skirt, so the hoops are evenly aligned. You can mark the hoops in eighths for greater accuracy, but I, with the little patience, was fine only marking them at every fourth. You can do this by putting bits of duct tape around the tube or if you have some kind of marker that shows up on the tube (silver sharpies), that works too.
7. ALMOST DONE! Now you carefully use your yarn and the yarn needle to sew the hoops to the skirt. I sewed it from outside to inside, large hoops to small.
Remember those markings you made so very long go, when cutting out the skirt pieces? They should correspond to the markings on the hoops. you can mark them more, if needed, such as numbering the hoops and corresponding markings to make sure you don't accidentally sew a hoop to the wrong marking.
Here, the smart and sturdy way would be to follow the dreamstress' method (from the second tutorial mentioned above) of sewing through each bit on the hoop, but without a needle strong enough to stab through the tubing, I just sewed the tubing to the skirt as tight as I could, then hot glued the yarn to the tube. Maybe this will hold up, maybe it won't. Only time will tell.
8. FIX THINGS: Try it on and see how you like it. Mine turned out heavier then planned for and the weight made it drag quite a bit. I ended up removing the last hoop and hemming the skirt by about 10". As the pic shows, with heels on, the skirt floats a few inches, which I quite like as it means not only is it less likely that it will get caught in my legs as I walk, but it is also less likely to pick up dirt and dust.
Yours may also not turn out perfect. I recommend trying it on, noting things that could be better, musing possible alterations and if the mistakes are really that bad over a snack break, and then attempt to fix what you can.
THUS, HOOP SKIRT.
things I wish I could have done better:
-photographed the process better
-drawstring instead of elastic, first time around
-fewer hoops, it's manageable, but a bit heavy
-it could be more accurate to Ice Queen's shape (needs to be a bit larger)
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