This calculator helps you determine the least amount of fabric required to make a circle skirt with a given diameter. It assumes you know how to make a circle skirt and have already figured out what diameter you want. This guide only cover the fabric requirement calculation. Please refer to the countless tutorials on the Internet on how to calculate the diameter of your circle skirt.
This calculator can also figure out the largest diameter you can get out of a piece of fabric you already have the measurement of.
Details and explanations at bottom of page.
When cutting 1 half-circle + 2 quarter-circles you may need to add a little fabric for waistband or other details. This is usually not necessary when cutting 2 half-circles since you'll have a lot more left-overs to work with.
Calculated values are theoretical minimums. Since it can be challenging making the edge of two half circles match perfectly you may want to add about 5cm cutting margin to the fabric length (10cm for half + 2 quarters).
Theories and Formulas
When making a full circle skirt for adult you usually cannot find wide enough fabric to cut a whole circle. The solution is cutting two half-circles.
When figuring out the fabric requirement the easiest approach is doubling the diameter, but you'll waste a lot of fabric and would buy much more than you actually need.
If you instead cut the half-circles from opposite edges you'll waste much less fabric (see the illustration below). For instance the fabric is 140cm wide (B) and you want a diameter of 160cm (D). If you cut them next to each other you'll need 320cm fabric. When cutting from opposite edges you only need 241cm.
Depending on the print of the fabric you could also cut 1 half + 2 quarters to save even more fabric! With our example above you only need as little as 164cm and still make a full cirle!
The formulas have certain conditions/limitations. When calculating fabric length (L) for half + 2 quarters you may sometimes end up with a length (L) which is shorter than the diameter (D). In that case you still need the length of the fabric to be equal to the diameter.
When having a very long (L) fabric the max diameter would be limited by the width (B) of the fabric. Even if you have 10 meter and the fabric is 140cm wide your diameter can at most be 278cm (twice the width minus 1cm seam allowance).
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