How-to: A Hoop Skirt Made from Wire Hangers

supplies to cut the wire hangers to size
supplies to cut the wire hangers to size

3. Do some math. The beauty of making your own hoop is that you can create it in any shape that you’d like. I needed a hoop that would follow the flare of a circle skirt, and would reach from the bottom of the garment’s bodice to my kiddo’s knees. Here’s the math that I used:

my calculations of hoop dimensions
my calculations of hoop dimensions

I measured the circumference of the dress’ bodice, just before the skirt begins its flare. My kiddo isn’t going to sit in this dress, so I can begin the hoop here. I calculated the radius of this circle.

I formed a wire circle for the bottom of the hoop, overlapping the ends of two pieces of wire hanger and securing them with duct tape whenever I needed to lengthen the wire. I calculated the radius of this circle.

I subtracted these two radii; the answer is side b of a right triangle.

Side a of the right triangle is the distance from the bottom of the bodice to my kiddo’s knees, where I want the skirt to end.

Solve to find side c of the right triangle.

4. Cut the wire to size. I created the bottom circle of the hoop back when I was doing my math, so all I still needed to do was create the top circle to match the circumference of the bodice, and to cut eight pieces of wire to equal side c of the right triangle.

Glue, then wrap, each join.
Glue, then wrap, each join.

5. Glue the wires together to form the hoop. Eyeballing the measurements to keep the wires roughly equidistant, I glued one end of each wire to the bottom hoop, then glued the other end to the top hoop.

6. Wrap the ends of the wire with duct tape. Hot glue can be brittle, and I don’t want any wires to possibly come loose and poke my kiddo, especially since I’m going to be sewing this hoop into an underskirt and won’t be able to repair it later, so I wrapped each glued join in duct tape, just to be safe.

If you don’t want to sew your hoop into your garment, you can sew it into an underskirt that can be worn underneath your garment, or you can attach it to garters and a belt. But unlike this hoop, make sure that YOUR hoop begins below your butt.

IF you want to be able to sit down in it, that is!

3 thoughts on “How-to: A Hoop Skirt Made from Wire Hangers”

  1. yeah, i too am impressed with the math. i think i would just make a big circle, and a little circle the size of the waist, then just kind of hold it in place, or have someone else hold it, while i measured the size the rods needed to be. but then, that’s why yours worked out on the first try, with probably very little cussing and extra wire cutting.

    i would also probably use some needle nose pliers to bend a loop in the ends of the wire, to secure it to the hoops, before applying the glue and tape. I don’t have the faith in hot glue that you do. but then again, you have worked with it WAY more than i have, so you know what its strengths and limitations are.

    1. Ooh, I SHOULD have used needle nosed pliers! I’d have needed to add the extra length on before I cut the wire, but once the loop is formed, I could have used regular pliers to squeeze it closed against the wire hoop. If it was firm enough, you might not even need to glue it, but I’d probably still wrap that end in duct tape just in case of pokes.

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