Hoop Snips

I let the Black Friday crowds die down, and on Sunday afternoon I went to OSH for "tin snips." Not sure of which kind would be best, I got the biggest ones they had for under $15. I figure they'll be handy to have around the house. Yes, they are huge! About 12 inches long.

The hoop skirt's steel wire is pretty tough stuff, though. I had to put it on the floor and lean down on it with my whole body weight to snap off a snip. But it did the job! A nice clean cut, that meant I didn't need to use the metal file. Then it was a matter of feeding the hoop wire into the 4 rungs of casings.  I joined the ends with Gorilla duct tape.

Sorry my camera ran out of battery, so I couldn't take a photo tonight of the finished hoop skirt. But trust me... it's hanging on the door in free-form and it looks circular. So I'm very confident it will hold its shape. The only mistake is that I came up about 6 inches short on the highest ring. A problem of measuring from the get-go, I suppose. So I bridged the gap with that awful plastic stuff.  It's not the greatest, but after all it's the top ring and the other 3 are doing great. Let's see how it looks when we try it on my friend "A" and whether it's going to look all right under the gown. Only 2 weeks until we go to the Dickens Fair!! Ahhhhh!!!