My housemate’s Halloween costume this year was Ariel from the Little Mermaid when she goes on her date with Eric:

She already had a white top and corset but asked if I could make the long blue skirt for her. Of course I said yes and then procrastinated about doing it until the weekend before it was needed!

Luckily, I’d been proactive about getting the fabric and zip! I ordered a couple of swatches from myfabrics.com and decided that their Cotton Twill Stretch in Turquoise was the best option:

I ordered 2 metres of it and a 22″ blue invisible zip.

I measured Lucy’s waist and used it to calculate the measurements for a half circle skirt using this calculator by Patty over at The SnugBug Collective. I subtracted 4 inches for bias stretch as it is a stretchy material.

I took my half circle skirt measurements and drew my pattern on pattern paper and worked out that I would need to have three panels to fit the pieces onto the fabric while keeping the length that I needed. I made the front of the skirt from one panel (i.e. half of the skirt) and then split the other half into two pieces. I didn’t have enough pattern paper to create the full length so I had to wing it while I was marking out the fabric:

What I also realised quite quickly was that my fabric wouldn’t be wide enough to use the angles you see in the photo above so I adjusted my pattern pieces to bring the skirt in a little on each side while keeping the waist measurement the same.

Once I’d cut out my pieces, I sewed the front piece to the two back pieces and attached a waistband:

I then attempted my first invisible zip for the back seam! It wasn’t as invisible as I might like but since it would mostly be hidden by the corset, I wasn’t too fussed. I have decided to invest in an invisible zipper foot for my sewing machine though!

I finished the back seam and then left the skirt to hang for 48 hours in case the fabric dropped. I’ve heard that can happen with circle skirts if you hem them straight away.

I then hemmed the skirt and was pretty happy with the finished piece:

I then made a bow for Lucy’s hair using this tutorial from the scrap skirt fabric (I used felt instead of interfacing as that’s what I had to hand at the time):

Lucy gave the skirt a good press before she wore it for Halloween at the office and the final costume was awesome: