Tutu

I know there are a bunch of tutorials on how to make a tutu. Here's how I made mine.

You need:

elastic or ribbon (to fit the waist)

sewing machine (if using elastic)

Tulle-for my red one I used 2 yards of red and 1 yard black. I bought mine from Walmart off the bolt but I know you can buy rolls of it at Micheal's.


For the waistband-I measured my girls waist and cut the elastic accordingly. I quickly sewed the ends together on my sewing machine. If you want a complete no sew tutu (like mine last year)-measure ribbon to the correct size plus enough to tie into a bow. Tie a knot on each side-at the length of their waist measurement. This will stop the tulle from moving around and falling off. Does that make sense?

Cut your tulle to the width and length you want. Double your length. Its tied so each piece you cut is really two strands on your tutu. (Sorry about the different colors-I ran out of yellow tulle so that one isn't finished yet.)

I like to put my elastic around my leg to keep it tight. Pull the top of you tulle under your elastic and make a loop.Grab the bottom of the tulle and pull it through the loop.Pull tight to create your knot. (you can just tie them on but this way makes it lay a little flatter)Slide them together. Keep going until you have covered the entire elastic...This makes a very poofy tutu. If you don't want it as poofy just add as much tulle as you want and then you can add ribbon or flowers along the top to fill in the spots showing on the elastic. If you use ribbon instead of elastic you don't really need to add any filler because the colors blend well.

Finished! As you can see mine is pretty wrinkly (that's why the ends look like so many different lengths). To fix that you can iron it on the lowest setting with a dishtowel over your tulle (don't let the iron touch it because it can melt) or stick it in the bathroom full of steam. I put mine in the bathroom for 10 minutes and it took care of most of the problem. I'll probably do it once more before Halloween.
I know have everything for their costumes and I'll show you the completed outfits when I'm done.