Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

After attending several events in the Boston area that have required the use of a hoop skirt, I had determined it was time to upgrade my Amazon hoop to something more substantial (especially since I seem to continuously step on the front of my skirts while dancing). While at Costume College, I purchased the Truly Victorian walking hoop pattern and some hoop steel, only to get home and realize I had not purchased enough steel to make the hoop as patterned. My initial thought was that I needed to order a second set of steel, but I was reminded by my mother of the old hoop skirt I had sitting up in our attic.

So a little bit of backstory here; I have always been interested in costumes. Starting in elementary school, I began planning my halloween costumes months in advance, often roping my mom into making something for me to wear instead of the cheaply made options found at party stores. And for a while, my mom enjoyed making my costumes. This resulted in handmade fleece Powerpuff Girl costumes, a white fleece cape to wear over my Cinderella dress (which I have since repurposed into a new, more adult cape to wear with my current Cinderella costume), and eventually a civil war era hoop skirt and dress made from a purple tie-dye patterned quilting cotton and a series of simplicity civil war patterns. I loved that dress and wore it several times for halloween, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back for my mom; I had to learn how to sew. Jump forward to 2019 with the need for a new hoop skirt that would support my pink ballgown. So with the date for Victoria and Albert Ball looming closer, I decided to cannibalize my old hoops for steel and create a brand new set.

Construction-wise, I followed Truly Victorian's Walking Hoop pattern with some minor adjustments. Instead of just pinning the threaded hoops to the support tapes and stitching them by hand, I stitched the casing in place before threading the steel into the casing. The only issue with this is that the front of my hoops are not perfectly finished, but I'll manage. In terms of wearability, the hoops do the job, except I'm still tripping over my front hem. It looks like I'll have to go back to the alteration board with this gown!