Tiered Skirt Tutorial

Someone over on Tribe.net asked for advice on making a tiered, 18 yard skirt. My reply turned into a tutorial, so I figured I'd copy & paste it over here for you all to enjoy as well. :) What is an 18 yard skirt, you ask? In American Tribal Style (ATS) bellydance costuming, we wear tiered skirts that give us a lot of fabric at the hem, which is great for flying during spins or for tucking in beautiful ways, with minimal fabric at the waist. A tiered skirt also leaves more useful leftover fabric when you're done making it than a circle skirt does, and the math is easier. An 18 yard skirt is 18 yards around the hem. Common skirts used for ATS dancers include 10 yard skirts (great for flying) and 25 yard skirts (great for tucking). The number of yards of the skirt means only how many yards in circumference the bottom tier is.

So behold! A lovely, albeit lengthy, tutorial! Enjoy!




I made a tiered 10-yard skirt last year, using a layout where all of my strips for the skirt were cut running the length of the fabric (vertically, as you describe it), keeping the grain of the fabric consistent (lengthwise/horizontal to the ground for all tiers). The same concept could be applied to making a bigger-than-10-yard-skirt, too.

The basic calculations for a tiered skirt is that each tier is half the circumference of the one below it. If you're working with an 18 yard skirt (to make the math a bit easier), it's 18 yards around the bottom tier, 9 yards around the next tier up, and so on.

To figure out the height to make each tier, measure how long you want the total finished skirt, and divide it by the number of tiers you want it to have. Most 10-yarders have 3 tiers. (I made mine with 4, and wouldn't recommend that many. It got too tight through the hips.) So if you want the finished skirt to be 36 inches long, with three tiers, each tier needs to have a finished height of 12 inches. Add your seam allowances to the height of each tier to figure out how tall to cut them. **Each tier will have a different height!** I like 1/2 inch seam allowances, so we'll use that for examples. For the bottom tier, just add the seam allowance to the top of this tier (we'll be laying it out so that the selvage will be on the bottom of the skirt, so we won't have to hem it.) The middle tier will need a seam allowances added to both the top & bottom of the tier. The top tier will need a seam allowance added to the bottom of it, and enough added to the top of the tier to fold over & turn into a casing for a drawstring or elastic. (There are other methods to treating the waist, but for simplicity, we'll stick with a fold-over casing.) We'll say we need 1.5" extra to make the casing.

So using these figures, here's what each tier's dimensions work up to:
Bottom tier: 18 yards around x 12.5" tall. (12" + .5")
Middle tier: 9 yards around x 13" tall. (12" + .5" + .5")
Top tier: 4.5 yards around x 14" tall. (12" + .5" + 1.5")

You could easily get away with having 4 tiers for an 18 yard skirt. If that's the case, your tiers will be as follows:
Finished skirt length: 36"
Finished height of each tier: 9" (36/4)
Bottom tier: 18 yards around x 9.5" tall (9" + .5")
Second tier from the bottom: 9 yards around x 10" tall. (9" + .5" + .5")
Third tier from the bottom: 4.5 yards around x 10" tall. (9" + .5" + .5")
Top tier: 2.25 yards around x 11" tall (9" + .5" + 1.5")
Play with it to find out what you prefer before you start cutting the skirt fabric.

Using the figures above for a 3 tiered 18-yard skirt, here's how you can get all your tiers with the grain running the length of the fabric. (I like to map this out on some graph paper or something first. Better safe than sorry!) Substitue your measurements of tier height if you came up with something different and if you want a different number of tiers:

Start by folding your fabric in half, lengthwise. If you bought your fabric off of a bolt, it's already folded that way. Press the fabric to make sure everything is smooth & plays nicely. The length of fabric you need will be half the total circumference of the bottom tier of the finished skirt. To make a 10-yard skirt, you'll need 5 yards of fabric. For an 18-yard skirt, you'll need 9 yards of fabric.

Measure & mark 12.5" up from the selvage side of the fabric, for its entire length. (Again, substitute your own measurements.) This will be your bottom tier. If you have fabric with a lengthwise border on it (like sari fabric, etc.), the border will be on the bottom tier. If you're planning to add trim to the bottom of the skirt, we'll add that in a little while.

To mark out the middle tier, measure & mark 13" up from the line you just drew. This section only needs to go half the length of the fabric, so 4.5 yards, instead of the whole 9 yards (tee hee!) of the fabric.

Where to lay out the top tier depends on the width of your total fabric while it's folded in half, and how you want your leftover fabric arranged.

If you have at least 14" left between the line you drew for the top of the middle tier and the fold of the fabric, you could lay out the top tier above the middle one. Measure & mark 14" up from the line you drew for the top of the middle tier, and extend the length of the top tier to be half the length of the middle tier, 2.25 yards. This way will leave you with a triangular-ish shape of leftover fabric.

Or you could lay out the top tier beside the middle tier. On the half of the fabric not being used for the middle tier, measure & mark 14" from the line you drew for the bottom tier, and extend the length of the top tier section to be half the length of the middle tier, 2.25 yards. This way will leave you with a 9-yard long strip of leftover fabric.

(Again, play with your layout on some paper first to find out what works for you, given the number of tiers you want & how you'd like your leftovers arranged, in case you want to use the leftovers for another project.)

So the layout should look something like this when you're done. Pretend the right side of this figure is straight across. And ignore the ..... They are just blank spaces that would otherwise be auto-corrected into oblivion. :)
___________________________Fold_____________________________
|.top tier: 2.25yds..|..........................................................................................|
|____x 14"______|______________...................leftover fabric......................|
|.....middle tier: 4.5yds x 13"..............|..............................................................|
|____________________________|_______________________________|
|.......................................bottom tier: 9yds x 12.5"..........................................|
|___________________________________________________________|
                                                           Selvage

or

___________________________Fold_____________________________
|..............................................leftover fabric...................................................|
|___________________________________________................................|
|.....middle tier: 4.5yds x 13"...............|...top tier: 2.25yds..|..............................|
|____________________________|___ x 14"________|_______________|
|......................................bottom tier: 9yds x 12.5"...........................................|
|___________________________________________________________|
                                                           Selvage

Check that everything is laid out how you want it. Pin the sections so that the two layers of fabric won't shift while you're cutting. Cut your layers from the fabric. Mark the right sides of the fabric, if you can't tell by glancing at it. Unpin.

Now is a good time to attach any trim you'd like onto the bottom tier. It will be more difficult to do this once the skirt is assembled, because the gathers will keep the hem from laying flat again.

Assembly:

You'll be putting the skirt together as a front half & a back half, then sewing the two halves together to finish the skirt. Work from the bottom tier to the top tier. It's less fiddly this way.

Using your gathering method of choice, gather a 9 yard section to fit onto the bottom of a 4.5 yard middle tier section. Pin like crazy & sew them together.

Gather the top of the middle tier you just sewed to the bottom tier. Gather the top of the middle tier to fit onto the bottom of the 2.25 yard top tier. Pin like crazy & sew them together.

You now have half a skirt! Repeat assembly instructions to put together the other half of the skirt. Pin the outer edges of the skirt halves together, wrong side out, and stitch from the bottom of the skirt to the waist. If the heights of your skirt halves don't match perfectly, you can correct it at the waist much easier than you can at the hem, especially if you have a border on the bottom tier.

Press down the top of the top tier 1/4", toward the wrong side of the skirt. Press down again another 1/4" from the fold you just made. This encases the raw edge of the fabric to protect it from ravelling as the drawstring rubs through the casing. Press down again 1" from the second fold you just made. Stitch down, leaving a gap in stitching to allow a drawstring or elastic to be inserted.

Put in your elastic or drawstring, and you're done! :D

Questions? Ask away!