A million years ago in another life, I saw this type of thing as a kind of accent for window treatments. For draperies, at any rate, they could be made in two different ways:
1: spiral cut & serge fabric on both edges ... then hang by the inside curve of the spiral
2: cut flounces (think rainbows) out of your fabric, sew the selvedges together, edge/trim/serge & hang by one end

These look WAAAAAY cooler than anything that's ever hung on a window, truthfully! ; )

She has that 1st outfit for sale and you can see them up close.

www.arabicdance.net/costumes...outs.html

Yup those are flounces or circle ruffles.

Basically, each section is a donut, with a slit from center to outside. Sort of like a capital Q, except thick. The inside edge of the donut becomes the top of the flounce, the outside edge is the hem.

The smaller the inside hole, the rufflier the flounce will be, larger holes have less ruffle. Compare to a drawstring ruflle, small hole is drawing it up tight, large hole is leaving it loose.

The distance from the inside hole to the outside edge is how deep or large the ruffle will be, less seam & hem.

So for a 4" deep ruffle, add 1" for seams and hems = 5". Add 2 more " for lots of fuffliness, 3" for less. Adding 3" to the 5" = 8". So, to get a 4" deep circle ruffle, draw a circle 8" in diameter. In the exact center, draw a circle 3" in diameter. Cut out this donut shape, that's your pattern.

To make the ruffles stand up sew fishing line or jewelry wire into the hem

so what i did was i took a tape measure and got the length i wanted, then put in into a spiral, with the 0" starting at a little circle or tear drop in the middle (so that the bottom end would have a point and not a funny.... bulb, shape, thing... ^_^)
then used a seam gauge to make the spiral get a little wider as it went further out from the center (like a snail shell)
once you get to the spot that is the length you want, i made a mark (on test muslin, then on a newsprint pattern that i used to get the edges smoothed out and the width even) and went around the spiral one more time, tapering the end to meet back at the spot i marked. (like if you took the opening in the snail shell that the snail pokes out of and pinched it shut)
without that last outside part of the spiral it will be too short, the inside edge of the spiral is what has to be the length you want.
i used my friend's rotary cutter to cut them out, i made ankle length and high-shin length ones for the skirt, and little tinny ones for my arms. i'll post pictures of the whole costume when it's done
thank you everyone!

i FINALLY posted the picture of them, even tho they were done since before the 10th of Oct.
thank you for the help everyone!