How to Make a Cage Skirt

Planning Your Skirt

Take measurements for your cage skirt. Use a tape measure to take the measurements. Make sure to write these measurements down and keep them to guide you through your project. circumference of waist circumference of hips distance from waist to mid-thigh distance from waist to knee distance from waist to mid-calf distance from waist to ankle

Decide how long you want your skirt to be. If you want a full length cage skirt, use your waist to ankle measurement; if you want a knee length cage skirt, use your waist to knee measurement; etc. Note this number for when you go to purchase your fabric.

Decide how full you want your skirt to be. To do this, lay the boning in a circle on the floor around you and keep widening or narrowing the circle until the hoop is the size that you want the largest part of your skirt to be. You can also use a simple math equation to figure out how long to make your boning strip. For example, if you want your skirt to be 30" across at the widest part, multiply 30 by Pi (3.14) and use the rounded result (94inches) as your boning length.

Gathering and Preparing Materials

Calculate how much fabric you will need. The total amount of fabric you will need is based on your choices for the length and width of the skirt. Add one inch to the width for the hem and add two inches to the length for the hem and waistband. Have your desired fabric cut to this length and width or do it yourself.

Purchase your fabric. Unless you plan to wear the skirt on its own, you can use any color or type of fabric that you want. The skirt or dress that you wear over your hoop skirt will cover it. However, you will want to consider a couple of things as you choose a fabric. Consider the transparency of the dress you will wear the cage skirt underneath. If the dress or skirt that you will wear the cage skirt underneath is light or slightly transparent, you will want to choose a light color fabric for the cage skirt. Consider the ease of sewing with the fabric. You may have a hard time completing this project if you choose a slippery fabric like satin. To make this project easier, opt for a light cotton or some other easy to sew fabric.

Determine how many hoops you will need. The hoops should be spaced about 4-5 inches apart to make sure that your skirt has a nice shape. Therefore, the number of hoops that you will need will depend on the length of your skirt. Divide the length of your skirt by 4 or 5 to find this number. For example, a skirt that will be 35" long should have 7 hoops because 35 divided by 5 equals 7. You may end up using one less hoop than you calculate since you will need to leave 2 inches below your bottom hoop and a couple of extra inches above your top hoop.

Determine the length of each piece of boning for the hoops. The hoops should become smaller as you move from the bottom to the top of the skirt. Therefore, if the length of boning for your bottom hoop is going to be 94", the next hoop might be 87 inches, then the next one might be 80", and so on. Add up the lengths to determine how much boning material you will need to purchase.

Purchase your boning material. There are some different things that you can use to provide structure for your hoop skirt. Choose something that works for your budget and seems sturdy enough to create the structure you desire. Some materials you can use include: 1/4" plastic strapping material used for wood shipments. Home Depot throws this away so often they'll just give it to you 1/4” steel or plastic boning material (look for it in the sewing sections at crafts stores) 1/4” poly tubing (look for it at a hardware store)

Cut your boning material to the lengths that you have chosen. You will need some strong scissors to cut your boning material. Measure before you cut each piece. You may also want write the measurement on a piece of paper and tape it to each piece to help you keep the pieces organized.

Determine how much ribbon you will need. You will need 1” wide ribbon to secure the hoops to the skirt.The amount of ribbon you will need will depend on your number of hoops and the width of your largest piece of boning. So for a skirt with seven hoops and a 94" piece of boning, you would need 658" of ribbon (94 times 7 equals 658). You will probably need to convert this number into feet or yards to make purchasing the ribbon easier.

Purchase your ribbon. Pick a strong ribbon material. Avoid lace or mesh ribbons. The color of the ribbon does not matter if you will only be wearing your cage skirt underneath another skirt or dress. If you plan to wear the hoop skirt alone, then you will want to choose ribbon colors that go well with your fabric.

Cut your ribbon into pieces that are the same length as the longest measurement for your fabric. So if your fabric measures 35” by 94”, then you should cut your ribbon pieces into 94” strands. You will need the same number of ribbon pieces as boning pieces.

Sewing Your Cage Skirt

Sew together the short ends of your largest piece of fabric. This large piece will be the skirt. Before you sew, fold your fabric in half width-wise and match up the two shorter ends of the fabric so that they are perfectly even. You can pin the edges together or just sew them together right away. When you sew the ends together, make sure to leave about ½ inch of material at the seam.

Pin the ribbon pieces to your skirt fabric. Pin the ribbon pieces to what will be the inside of your skirt. Remember to space the ribbons about 5” apart, but also leave 2” below the lowest ribbon and an extra 2” (7” total) above the highest ribbon.

Sew the ribbon pieces onto your skirt. Sew along the long edges of the ribbon pieces. Stay very close to the edge of the ribbon as you sew so that you will be able to slide the boning into the space between the skirt and the ribbon. Do not close off the seam at the ends of the ribbon. Make sure that you can lift up the ribbon a bit and that you can slide the boning into the tube you have created.

Create the waist for your skirt. Take about an inch of fabric at the top of your skirt and fold it in half. Pin the fabric and then sew it leaving about ½” of space between the thread and the edge. When you are done you will have a closed tube of fabric at the top of your skirt. Cut a small hole in the tube you have created. Attach a safety pin to a piece of ribbon and close it. Use the safety pin to help you work the ribbon through the tubing. When the safety pin comes out the other side, remove the safety pin and gently tug the ends of the ribbon to cinch the waist. You can even try on the skirt at this point to get the waist to where you will want it to be.

Slide the boning material into the spaces between the ribbon and skirt. Make sure to slide the correct lengths into the correct spaces. After you have the pieces in place, sew the edges of the ribbon to prevent the boning from coming out. Double stitch the edges to make them extra secure.

Try on your cage skirt! After you have finished sewing the boning into place, you are done. Try on your hoop skirt to see how it looks. Wear it under another skirt or a dress to get the full effect.