Twirling Tutus

Happy Valentine's Day! We found this in our last bag of potatoes.

Anyway, here is my latest project:

After seeing the nutcracker Chalyse was asking for a tutu. They retail for about $30 if you get a full one like this so instead I ordered some tulle for like 95 cents a yard and made some of my own to give to the girls for Valentine's Day.  Each one only took me about an hour and a few dollars to make.

Here are the girls twirling in their new tutus.

If  you are interested on making your own here is what I did:

I used 4 yards of tulle (in two colors, two yards each color) for each tutu. Mine were for toddlers so you may want to use more if you are making one for a little girl. I cut each piece of tulle down the middle length wise so that I had 4 strips of fabric that were each 2 yards long half the original width. Then I layered them every other color and pined them down the middle. I folded them in half and moved the pins to about an inch from the folded edge. Then I sewed along the folded side leaving a gap big enough for the elastic.

I used inch wide elastic cut it to be slightly shorter than the distance around the girls waists. I threaded the elastic through the tube I had sewed in the tulle then sewed the ends of the elastic together. I made sure the tulle was evenly gathered then I stitched a wide zigzag stitch over the elastic to keep it from sliding around. Make sure you stretch the elastic while you sew so the thread doesn't break when they put it on.

You can leave it like that but to make it more full, to separate the colors a bit and to help hide the elastic here is what i did:

I flipped the whole thing upside down (so the elastic is flipped inside) and fluffed half of the layers going the other direction. Then I sewed them down to the what used to be the inside of the elastic (but is not facing out) with another zigzag stitch. I fluffed the rest of the layers down and tacked them down to the elastic with a short stitch about every 3 inches. Then I sewed on a flower by hand.

And there you have it: a pretty tutu for a fraction of the price.