Time for everyone’s favorite subject!

As long as it’s fabric shopping

So, I plan for my skirt to have 3 flounces. How much fabric does each need?

My waist – floor measurement is 38 inches. The petticoat will add a bit more and the back is probably longer than the front, but since I’m dancing in this in ballet flats and don’t want it to touch the floor let’s go with 36″ for simplicity.

So, dividing by 3 gives 12″ per flounce.

Not done yet. I want each flounce to overlap the one below it, so the base skirt (made of cotton) doesn’t show beneath them. Especially since I’ll be doing a whole lot of twirly dancing in this skirt. 3 inches should be a good amount of overlap, so we’re now up to 15″.

Alas, still not done. My flounces are going to be scalloped on the bottom, with a scallop height of 4 inches.

I still want the flounces to overlap, so I’ll need to add that much more onto the length so I don’t get any cotton showing. 20″ now.

Done? NOPE. Let’s not forget (as I often do) the concept of seam allowance. I’m going to cord-gather the flounces so I need another inch bit at top to fold over.

That brings us to 21 inches tall for each flounce. Victorian dresses do tend to eat fabric for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

A quick calculation for length. My skirt base is ~135″ wide ( 3 widths of 45″ fabric minus seam allowance. TBH it could stand to be wider, but I didn’t feel like cutting fabric in half.). The top tier will match the top of the skirt, so 135″. The lower two tiers will be 25% bigger than the skirt width, so 168.75 each.

And each of those is going to be cut on the bias. FUN.