Rayon Challis Maxi Circle Skirt

Rayon challis makes the most heavenly circle skirt. Today’s post will walk you through the process of sewing a maxi circle skirt. Lined and with an invisible zipper. Because why not?!?

First of all let’s talk fabric. Be forewarned that a maxi circle skirt is going to require a maximum amount of fabric. Think dramatic entrance. This skirt took 6 yards of rayon challis to create! Please check out our post about the fabric (and that stunning shirt!) over at CaliFabrics.

It’s actually impossible to make a maxi circle skirt this long with no seams. Fabric comes in widths of 44-60″ and to create a circle skirt with no seams, the waist circle has to be cut in the center of a square of fabric. When the width is restricted to 60″, the longest you can make a circle skirt without a seam is less than 30″ (because of the size of the waist hole in the center of the square. Maybe an illustration will help.

So as you can see, a full maxi circle skirt longer than approximately 28″ with NO side seams is not possible using ordinary fabric. However, you can still make a full circle skirt in maxi length by cutting two half circles and sewing them together to create side seams. Here’s the illustration of that:

Now the circle skirt can be up to 55+ inches long. And at 6″ tall, we know there aren’t many females out there who will require it to be longer than that! Adding side seams does offer a few benefits, one being that you can add a zipper to the side for easier dressing, and a better/tighter fit.

Without including illustrations, here are the steps we took to create a maxi circle skirt that is lined with an invisible side zip and waistband. Let us know if you’d like a further tutorial with illustrations!

1. Cut out two half circles as described above. (There are a lot of circle skirt calculators out there, but here’s the one we used.)
2. Cut out a waistband with a width of the waist measurement plus 1″ by twice the desired height plus 1″
3. Cut out a knee length a-line shape lining. (We used jersey fabric and just winged it on shape!)
4. Sew together one side seam.
5. Sew on the waistband. (Here’s a great tutorial.) Be sure to include the lining in this step!
6. Insert the invisible zip. (Here’s a nice tutorial.)
7. Let the skirt hang for 24+ hours to get an even hem.
8. Hem the skirt!
9. Wear it over and over again…
10. T.W.I.R.L!!!

That’s it! Any questions?