Circle skirt DIY tutorial

So I recently joined ballroom and needed a flouncy short skirt for the latin rounds.  This also coincided with my birthday, in which the theme of the night was red.  Our apartment was festively decked out in red streamers, lights covered in red cellophane, and red balloons.  I felt like it was a shame if I also didn't deck myself out in full red.  I considered being boring and wearing a red dress from five years ago, but why wear something old when I can make something new!  I had been wanting to make a circle skirt for awhile so here was my excuse!   I stopped by Joann Fabrics and found this wonderful red light polyester fabric for $5 a yard and bought two yards.

I then proceeded to measure an approximate length that I wanted the skirt to be by taking a measuring tape down my body.  I ended up deciding on 18 inches (which ended up being pretty short, I wouldn't recommend any shorter).  Then, fold the fabric into fours, making sure you have enough space in both directions after the fold.

 Now, setting the corner as the inside, cut a circle with the specified length that you measured.

Now, measure the area around your waist and calculate the radius you need to cut in order to fit your waist.  Wooo math! I measured 35'' and the equation for the circumference of a circle is 2*pi*radius, therefore my radius = 5.57.  Because my fabric is stretchy and to allow for extra fabric to sew the elastic, I subtracted two inches off of that.

Of course, try it on and make sure it looks ok.  You should make the necessary modifications before sewing in the waistband.  Mine looked fine so whee! on to the next step!  I very narrowly folded the inside of the hem and top stitched the edges, just so that raw edges wouldn't be exposed.  I then folded it over about a half an inch and top stitched that.  This half an inch gap is where your elastic goes.

Total time: 1 hour!  I also had no time this week, so ideally, you would hem the bottom too, but eh, I didn't care enough.  It still looked awesome though and was so fun to dance in (with shorts underneath, of course)! And how often can you find a red flouncy skirt in stores like this?  Also, I barely used up the two yards, so this skirt cost me less than $5.

woooo party pics! and flounciness!