by lexi of Mostly True Stuff

There are five million no-sew tutu tutorials out there. I used to make those, but then I realized how much awesomer sewn tutus were, and that you could make them HUGE, which you can’t with the no sew. I’ve had a couple of people ask me how I made the ones for the wedding, so I thought I’d post a tutorial.

SUPPLIES:

Tulle
3/4″ wide or 1″ wide elastic. Doesn’t really matter. Just not small elastic.
Tulle
sewing machine
Matching thread, whatever kind is the cheapest I guess, I don’t know the difference.

First, buy your tulle on ROLLS- not bolts. I’m not kidding. Sure, it may be a little bit cheaper to go with the bolts, but it’s not worth your freaking time. You can get them at Joann’s for about $3 a roll. They never go on sale so you can always use your coupon- you can even just hand them your phone with your coupon on there and they’ll scan it (I get my coupons at: http://printable-coupons.blogspot.com/). If you’re doing more than one tutu, I’d get my tulle online at:  http://www.tullesource.com/tulle-fabric.html.

You’ll need at least 3 25 yard rolls for each tutu. More or less depending on how awesome you want the tutus to be.

Start with the end of all three rolls. This way you can cut them all at once. I’ll draw a picture. I put all of the rolls on the floor, pull the tulle out to the length* I want, and chop. It really doesn’t matter how jagged the edges are, either. I try to keep them straight, but there’s SO MUCH tulle, that you’ll never know. The length of the tulle you cut is the length of the girl’s (or boys, we’re a gender neutral blog) leg from hip to knee doubled. So for a baby who’s leg is 6 “, I do about 12″. Maybe add an inch if you want it to be longer (keep in mind, that the tulle sticks OUT, so it won’t really lay to her knee if you only do the length doubled – add more length for a little more modesty ;).  There are some standard measurements out there, but I’ve found that they run REALLY big. So ask the person already. It’s not hard. Text them or something. If they don’t have measuring tape, have them use a string and then measure the string with a ruler. If they don’t have those things, they’re cavemen and don’t need an fabulous tutu.

The elastic can be cut to the measurement of the girl’s waist, and then add an inch for where you’re going to sew it together. But don’t do that yet. It’s much easier to sew it together for the final step. Take the end of the elastic and tie a FAT knot in it. Or put a hair clip on it. Something so that the tulle doesn’t come off the end as you sew it on.

Now take three or four pieces of your cut tulle and put them in a pile. You’re going to loop the tulle pieces around the elastic and stitch NEXT TO the elastic. You don’t ever stitch the tulle straight to the elastic. This gives you the space to pull down the sewn on tulle- making the tutu fuller as you go along. When you’ve got your first set on there, leave the machine where it’s at. Just add your next bunch of tulle and continue to sew. I just butt my tulle right up to the edge of the tulle that is already sewn on it and then sew straight through:

Keep adding tulle until you get to the end of the elastic, then take all of the tulle you’ve sewn on so far and push it towards the knot in the elastic.

On the other side of your sewing machine, you’ll start to see a fluffy tutu taking shape. This is where you get to play with how fluffy you want your tutu. Simply keep adding tulle and pushing it down until you either get all the way around your elastic (try not to stretch it when you’re pushing the tulle down- this happens when you’re trying to get entirely too much tulle on one elastic, which is kind of hard to do, so if you’ve run into this problem, kudos! You’re die hard!) or run out of tulle.

Untie the knot in the end, loop it around to the other side and sew it together. Voila! You’ve made a tutu. Not too hard, right?