Another DIY that I thought would be a fun challenge. Now… you can buy a hoop skirt petticoat for pretty cheap online, but doing it yourself would allow you to customize the size or shape, sometimes you want something a bit more unique. You can find a great tutorial for a kids version here, which is also where I found the idea of using pex pipe… I wasn’t sure what I would use until I saw it used.
This is a great example of not doing it quite right (test the size of the hoops under a skirt to make sure it looks even… you will see evidence of this in my Alice in Wonderland Wedding dress tutorial!). Ultimately, this was just a really fun project, and something I can use for plenty of costumes in the future.
DIY Hoop Skirt Tutorial
You will need:
- 9-10 feet of a cheap cotton or linen fabric, white
- 60 feet of 1 inch wide, white
- sewing machine
- Pex pipe tubing (find it in the plumbing aisle)
- 1/4 inch wooden dowels, cut into 2 inch long pieces
- Hand saw
- hot glue gun
Instructions:
1. Start by folding down one of the long edges of your fabric down and pinning so you have a two inch loop at the top. Sew it in place. This is now the top.
2. Measure and mark down the short side of the fabric every six inches, starting from the top. Then, starting at one 6 inch mark, run the ribbon the long way down the fabric, making sure it is 6 inches away from the top, and pin in place.
3. To attach the ribbon so it becomes a tube you can run the tubing through, sew down one side of the ribbon as closely as you can to the edge, then sew down the other side, again, as close as you can to the edge.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3, making sure that each row of ribbon is 6 inches below the previous row. For the last row, you may not have the full width, instead, try to put the last row around 2 inches from the bottom. For me, this resulted in an 8 inch gap between the bottom and second from the bottom rows.
5. Run the pex pipe tubing through the first row of ribbon until it fills out the skirt and comes through the other end. Use a hand saw to cut the tubing off at the right length.
6. To complete the hoop, pipe hot glue into one end of the tubing and slide half of a 2 inch section of quarter inch dowel into the glue and hold in place until the glue sets. Then, fill the other end of the tubing and slide the remaining end of the dowel in and hold until it sets. Continue this process until you have placed all of your hoops.
7. If you have a hoop that is too large or too small, you can remedy this with a quick adjustment. Slide the hoop around in the ribbon opening until you are past the original connection. Using the hand saw, VERY CAREFULLY cut through the tubing. Now, you can either cut out more tubing to make the hoop smaller, or add a section of pipe using set 6 to make it larger.
Enjoy large full skirts on your costumes!
Hi! I'm Alyce. 
