Three Quarter Circle Skirt

No Blocks are needed to draft the circle skirts, you only need your waist measurement, including ease.

Example: Outcome

Figure A shows the end shape of garment in yellow, like a circle with a quarter wedge removed. The white shows the final pattern piece, which is a quarter of the yellow shape.

Instructions: Drafting 3/4 Circle Skirt – Figure 1

  • Draw a horizontal line from A to B1: the length of this line is your waist measurement (including 1 inch ease), divided by 4.71*
  • Measure from B1 to C1, your desired skirt length
  • Measure the same distances vertically down from A, to B2 and C2 making sure that the vertical line is at right angles to the horizontal.
*The waist measurement I am using (including ease) is 27.38 inches.  My skirt length is 24.5 inches.

Instructions: Drafting 3/4 Circle Skirt – Figure 2

We want to draw a line at 45 degrees to the A~C lines:
  • Square down and across from points B1 & B2 to make a perfect square: A, B1 and B2 are three points of the square.
  • Mark the fourth point of the square D.
  • Draw a line from A and through D.  Make this line the same length as the length A~C1 & A~C2.  Mark the end point C3.

Instructions: Drafting 3/4 Circle Skirt – Figure 3

We now want to draw a line that will create a 22.5 degree angle down from the horizontal A~C1 line.
  • Draw a straight line between points C1 and C4, and mark the half-way point.
  • Draw a line from A through the halfway point and mark the end point C4.  The length of this line is the same as A~C1, A~C2 & A~C3.
  • Measure from A along this A~C4 line and mark point B3.  The length of A~B3 is the same as A~B1 & A~B2.

Instructions: Drafting 3/4 Circle Skirt – Figure 4

  • Draw a semi-circle shape from B3 to B2.
  • Draw a semi-circle shape from C4 to C2.
The way to create the correct circular shape:
  • Measure the A to C distance with a tape measure, then swing the tape measure around (pinned at A) and mark that measurement at various points.   Blend with a curved ruler.
  • Repeat for A to B to create the curve for the waist.

Instructions: Drafting 3/4 Circle Skirt – Figure 5

  • This is the final (working) pattern piece (i.e. seam allowance, cutting instructions still need  to be added, etc).
  • You could cut 4, or cut two on fold.
The grainline can be placed a number of ways, depending on where you want the flares to be.

2 Responses

  1. This is a well written tutorial and made complete sense with each step. Thank you for taking the time to write this out for sharing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *