I have a love-hate relationship with circle skirts.

I make a lot of these things. A couple years ago, I didn't really like them that much. Gathered skirts were my favorite by far. Well, they still are my favorite I guess, but the circle skirts have carved out a nice space in the clothes liking sector of my brain. So, I like these things, but whenever I make one there's always this layer of frustration that makes me not want to do it again. And then I do it again a few weeks later.

It's not that I'm bad at figuring out the math (which tends to worry some people making circle skirts). My problem is with hemming them. I'm not exactly the type of person who can hang a project overnight and wait for it to fall into shape. Even if I do that... well... I admit I don't really know how to trim the hem while it's hanging up. Trimming the skirt while it's down flat doesn't actually help. I often work with sturdy fabrics that don't stretch noticeably on the bias so this isn't a problem, but not always.

Here's the latest circle skirt in my collection: a hot pink linen-look rayon (probably... maybe) that wrinkles like it's paid to do it (but so pretty! ugh).

 It is a full circle wrap skirt made of two half circle pieces. The seam ended up in an odd spot, but that's just because I wasn't really thinking about it. I could have probably cut this as one piece and not even had a seam. I decided on the length because of  an old denim skirt that's just a bit too tight, that I really like the fit of.

 I hemmed it with some lace to keep it from wrinkling up too much on the curves. You might have noticed the hem is pretty close to even all the way around. So what was I complaining about above? This is what the skirt looked like when I first hemmed it:

Fail. I had to rip the hem out, wait in case it stretched even more, then trim and hem again. I'm still not sure how to do it easily. I used the hem length gauge on my dress form but that doesn't touch the parts hanging closer to the dressform, and pulling them to touch the gauge distorts the hem. I don't know.