Equestrian Riding Skirt How to Guide

How to Make a Winter Riding Skirt from Canvas and Fleece Step-by-Step Guide

This is my general guide to making a canvas fleece lined riding skirt. This "pattern" will help guide you make a heavy duty washable, daily use circle skirt that is split down the front to keep you and your horse warm. It works a bit like a wearable half sheet.  If you have any questions by all means leave a comment and I'll try and answer it to the best of my ability. 

Supplies:

I think there's the guts of about three skirts here. Christmas circa 2017  

Yours Truly at about 2am sometime in December regretting her entrepreneurial endeavors.

• Fleece Fabric 3-4 yards
• Canvas or other outer fabric of choice 3-4 yards (same amount as Fleece, if you're bigger or taller- get 4 yards, average body type 3.5 will do and smaller as little as 3) 
• A few heavy duty sewing needles for your machine
• Thread to match canvas/outer fabric. heavy duty recommended 

• snaps- sew on (get 2) or pound in (get 4- this is the speediest/easiest way to go)

• Large dinner plate (I'll explain. promise.) 
• Measuring tape 

If your outer fabric is cotton, canvas or you even suspect it might shrink. Go wash it. This is important.

Measure your Body 

     You'll want to get a couple of measurements to help you diagram out how you will cut out your pieces. 

1. Measure your waist. Measure it with the appropriate number of layers you intend to be wearing. add a smidge extra for the potential for Christmas feasting. Write that number down.
2. Outseam. This is on your pants from the top of  your pants/hipbone/where you want your skirt resting to your ankle. If you can't get your outseam- your inseam + 4-5 inches works fine. 

Hated Math

we're going to have to do some

    So we're going to have to do some circle-ometry. This skirt is a full circle skirt. Don't worry I'll walk you through it.  

    Your waist measurement determines the waistband of your skirt. You'll want to add 2.5 inches to it for overlap for your snaps.  In order to diagram out and cut out your pieces we need to determine the radius of the circle that is your waist + 2.5 inches.  Circumference (waist measurement + 2.5 inches) = 2* radius* pi.  So you can solve for your Radius as

r = C/(3.14 x 2) 

    Alternatively: just visit this site and plug in your waist measurement + 2.5 inches into the circumference and take the returning radius value. 

Circumference Calculator

    Write down that radius value. We're gonna need that.

    Alright. you'll need these numbers to get you going:

• Waist Radius
• Outseam
• Waist Radius + Outseam 

 and we'll work out some diagramming.  

Diagraming and Laying out the Skirt pieces

     After gathering together all these numbers, we can draw the pattern for our skirt. If you use your measuring tape and a pin, you will not actually have to create a paper pattern, you can sketch out your skirt pieces directly onto your fabric and cut away.  I usually use sidewalk chalk since it washes out easily. but any washable marker will do.

    Refer to the following image. Get out a sheet of paper and sketch out your own so you have a guide. 

Our pattern relies on four quarter circles- with the back of the skirt combined into a single half circle, and two quarter circles for the front. 

    Once you've assigned the appropriate values its time to trace out your skirt.  The best way I've found to do this is to stick a pin in the corner of your fabric and use your measuring tape to form a rudimentary string protractor.  you can move along the radius and create an arc that is the quarter hole that will be for your waist.  

    Do the bottom of your skirt the same way- leaving your pin where it is and measuring down your outseam + waist measurement. This should give you a quarter circle on your fabric with a quarter circle hole at the top.  

Using a pin and your measuring tape as a string protractor. I usually work on carpet- which acts as a great peg-board. 

    Cut out this piece. You will trace it to cut out the rest of your pieces of the skirt.  You will need 6 pieces total- both fleece lining and canvas outer. 

How I lay out my pieces on fabric. Cut the first one (left) and then trace it for your remaining pieces. The center piece forms the back of the skirt and you'll save yourself an extra seam by not cutting it in the center.  

What about that Dinner Plate you mentioned?

    I'm so glad you asked.  

    I like to add a curved finish to the front opening of my skirt, so for a nice round neat edge, take your two (four really- you'll do it for both your lining and your outer) quarters- paying attention to orientation if your fabric has a right and a wrong side (they will need to be in opposite corners so you cant just lay out a stack and cut them all together unless you've first faced the pieces opposite eachother) and stick your dinner plate in that corner so it lies tangent to the bottom of the skirt and the straight front edge and trace then cut. Leave your half circle piece as is. 

Pockets

optional- but easy and highly recommended. 

     These don't require any measurements other than what you consider a decent opening size and are sewn directly into the seam of your outer (canvas skirt). I usually decide my aperture to be about the length of my hand- and it works pretty good. I make my pockets out of my fleece fabric so they keep my hands toasty. 

I like to make my pockets about 11" deep and 6" wide so I can fit a lot in them and I round the edges into a general pocket shape.  

Sewing the Skirt

    Now that we have all our skirt pieces cut-out we can sew them into something coherent. The first thing I do is sew in the pockets.  To do so lay your pocket pieces on what would be the outside of your skirt (the patterned side if your skirt has a pattern) See diagram- 

Sew along the aperture (blue line) leaving the outside of the pocket (yellow lines) open.  You'll close that up once you've sewn along the side seams. 

    Once you've sewn the apertures of all four half pockets its time to sew the side seams. You'll do this right sides together. Pin first. then sew. Do as the diagram speaks unto you.  You'll start that seam where the aperature of your pockets leave off. 

    Sew the same side seams with your fleece. No pockets to worry about this time. 

    Next go sew your pockets into pockets. 

Here is a helpful video for this whole pocket thing. How to sew seam pockets

    Alright. Now with both the top and the bottom of your skirt made- its time to sew it together.  Lay it right sides together and go to town pinning.  Then sew along the bottom edge and center front. Leave the top open. 

sew the outer canvas to the inner canvas as shown in yellow.

    Turn right side out. If you want you can tack your outer canvas down to your inner fleece about six inches from the edge. This looks very nice and can be done with a contrast thread to make it pop. 

    

Alrighty. Our Skirt part is all done. Time to move onto the waistband. 

The Waistband

Belt Loops

    First thing to do is make some belt loops. I make five belt loops- two for the front and three for the back. the first time I made a skirt I simply used ribbon, but making your belt loops from your fleece and canvas looks very classy and is quite sturdy. each belt loop will be about 5 inches long by 1.5 inches wide. I usually cut strips of my canvas (25"x1.5") and fleece (25"x1.7") and sew them together then turn inside out and cut every five inches to make my individual belt loops. A little of the lining fabric will show on the edge as a kind of "piping"  I also "tack down" the fleece to the canvas as I did with the skirt just in from the edge. 

    Set those belt loops aside, we'll use them in a minute.

Waistband

Building the waistband is fairly simple.  cut two rectangles out of your canvas- they will be long strips "waist measurement + 2.5 inches" x 5 inches.  From here, lay your five belt loops where you'd like them to sit on one of your strips,- one in center back, two to either side and two in what would be center front when you fasten the skirt. Pin them in place. Lay the second strip of fabric over it, dead even, and rearrange/add more pins so you can move on to sewing.  I will warn this is an unholy amount of fabric for your machine to go through if you don't have a heavy duty machine. Go slow. and try not to cry like I did when you break your fifth heavy duty sewing needle.  Sew around the edge like the image below, leaving the bottom of the waistband open so you can attach it in the next step.  

Sew along the edge leaving the bottom edge open. Turn inside out when done. 

Sewing the Skirt to the Waistband

Remember how we were lamenting the death of our sewing needles previously? It gets worse.  

    Pin the outside of the waistband to the skirt, right sides together (belt loops to where the outside would be). Pin through both the canvas and the fleece layers, and through your belt loops. If you don't have faith in your pins- go and stitch the bottoms of the belt loops down to the waistband. Sew the skirt to the waistband. 

    Next- if you're going with the sew on snaps route- do that now. I usually add a couple layers of scrap canvas as interfacing when I do this.  If you're going the Pound-in Snaps method, rejoice in your lazy ingenuity and proceed knowing you saved yourself an hour's work. 

    Alright,  the final bit of sewing.  If you're using canvas, getting it wet with a spray bottle works just as well as ironing, but fold over the inner edge of the waistband, and pin in place over the seam you just did.  I have found that you can machine stitch this down if you use a thread that matches your outer color being careful not to go over your belt loops. However you can also hand stitch it with a felling stitch if you're either a perfectionist or a glutton for punishment.  

    Your skirt is pretty much done. If you went the pound in route for your snaps- go get your hammer. The packaging for those snaps should have the directions included, so I wont outline that here.  

This one had three brass pound in snaps and looked lovely in coral and navy. 

Hope this was helpful and everyone makes some beautiful Riding Skirts!