How to Make a Tribal Skirt

[Mrs. Peel]

The ten-yard tribal skirt is a miracle of swoop when you spin, a mastery of gathers when you shimmy, and a delight of sway as you walk. And to judge from the prices of tribal skirts, you’d think it took a miracle to make them, right? Well, there is no miracle involved and not even that much fabric, just a great deal of laborious gathering. If you’ve got the temperament to sit and carefully gather a total of 15 yards worth of fabric, you can have a beautiful custom made tribal skirt in less than a day!

To begin, you need 6 yards of fabric. For your first skirt, I recommend a cotton or a cotton/poly blend. You can also use silk, satin, and lighter-weight brocades. You can do the traditional tribal black skirt, but for some fabulous color options, check out the quilting section of your fabric store. Subtle prints look very tribal when gathered into a skirt. You may also choose to add a contrast border to the bottom of your hem. This is a nice way to add the richness of brocade without suffering the cost of six yards of fabric. You really only need one yard of contrast fabric. You will also need your hip’s worth of 2” elastic.

To begin, figure out how long you want your skirt. I always err on the side of too long rather than too short because there is nothing more distracting to me than seeing a long line of costuming interrupted by the workings of bare feet (or worse, clunky shoes—yes, I’ve seen it!). You can always make a skirt shorter; longer is more of a challenge. Measure from your waistband (wherever you choose to wear your dance skirts—probably not around your natural waist) to the floor. Add 2” to your total. Now divide by 3 to get the width of your panels. For our illustration, I am assuming a length of 37”. Each panel is going to be 13 inches wide.

Rip your 6 yards of fabric into 13” strips (you will probably have a 4th strip of excess fabric). Then take one of your 6 yard strips and cut it into two lengths—4yds and 2yds. Sew the 4yd piece onto the end of the 6yd piece to give you a 10yd bottom panel. Take another strip and cut off 1yd (keep the 5yd piece). See illustration below.

Run a gathering stitch along the edge of your 10yd piece (this is a straight stitch on your sewing machine with the stitch length set to the longest). Now measure the halfway point of both your 10yd piece and your 5yd piece and pin the two pieces together. Pin the ends of the 10yd piece to the ends of the 5yd piece. You will now begin gathering the 10yd piece by grasping the bobbin thread and pulling it. Gather from one end until half of the 10yd piece fits, then gather from the other end. Pin and stitch together. Repeat this procedure, gathering the 5yd piece to the 2yd piece.

For the hem, if you have chosen to add a contrasting band, cut your yard into eleven 4”X1yd strips. Sew the ends of the strips together, fold the band in half (seams together) and press. Sew this onto the bottom of the 10yd panel, trim off the excess and press open. If you do not want a contrasting band, assemble a 4” strip with your remaining panel of fabric. If you are making matching troupe skirts, you can buy a longer length of contrast fabric to make fewer seams in your contrast panel.

Once this is done, match the open ends of the skirt together from the bottom up (this way, if your panels aren’t perfectly straight, the mismatch will be at the top/waistband which is usually hidden by scarves and belts). Stitch together. Now fold over 2.25” at the top to form your waistband casing. Stitch down, leaving an opening to insert the elastic. Even though you measured the distance around your hips for the waistband, you’ll probably want to cinch it in an inch or two as the weight of the fabric will exert quite a pull—better to have the waistband a little snug than to constantly be hitching your skirt up while dancing! (You may also insert a drawstring instead of or in addition to elastic, but I find the darned strings uncomfortable!)

You can leave the gathers poofy or press them flat, depending on your tastes. You can also turn them into broomstick skirts, depending on the type of fabric you are using (a cotton/poly blend will not hold the creases for example).