A Tu-Tutorial

I recently had a custom order for a tu-tu. Hence the title :) And they are super easy so I thought I would share an easy tutorial for anyone who is interested. So here!

SUPPLIES:

- favored colored tulle (mine are light pink, hot pink, and black)

- soft, knitted elastic

- Scissors

- A rotary cutter

- cutting mat

- a ruler or straight edge

- tape (optional)

You'll notice that I have a few spools of tulle and one cut by yardage. It was MUCH easier to cut with the spools. It takes less time and is simply more organized.

Start by unrolling tulle like ^so^

Tape edges to stay in place.

And place straight edge on the tulle.

Cut along the edge of the ruler. I made my strips a little over 1'' wide.

Cut and scootch. cut and scootch.

Then cut the ends of the strips and lay them aside. I made my strips about 19'' long. They need to be longer than necessary so that you can half them and trim them later. Remember, I'm making mine for a newborn so depending on yours, you might need the strips to be longer.

{think, 19'' - half - some for knotting and trimming = about 7 inches for me}

Now repeat these previous two steps 142 more times. Perfect.

Tip: I actually ran out of the light pink tulle, so I replaced every third light pink with a pink ribbon. It softened up the tu-tu and gave me more of the light pink to be able to finish!

Caution: Tulle is messy. They love to stick together like really clingy relationships, if you will.

(they also cling to your clothes, and shoes, and find there ways into other rooms. so beware)

So don't throw them in piles as I clearly did. This will make them super difficult to separate and they eventually stay in the crooked, crinkly mess they sit in. So try to lay them straight.

Grab that elastic. Lay it straight and cut the desired length. Mine was for a newborn so it turned out very small.

But if you have access to the person you're making it for, simply measure wherever it will sit on their hips, and take off about a half an inch to one inch, so that it will stretch.

If you dont just make it a little bigger, so they can maybe grow into it!

Now that the tulle is cut into strips, I grabbed two pieces of my hot pink and folded it in half and grabbed it like so around the elastic.

Then pull the long pieces thru the loop at the top.

Adjust tightness and placement.

HINT: For this one I used THREE strips of the light pink because I wanted it to be more full and balance with the stronger colors.

Find a pattern of the colors you're using that you like and make sure the knots look similar to this.

(New day, new shades of pictures haha.)

Once you get a few inches away from finishing all of your tulle, sew together the elastic.

I pinned my elastic together first, sewed it together a few times then used a v-stitch (not the correct term) on the lowest numbers and just went back and forth a few times before I felt it would be able to hold.

Caution: This is what happens to me when I left all my strips in piles instead of laying them more neatly. If this happens, you can grab a steamer and steam away, combing them with your fingers as you go.

If you don't have a steamer, hanging it in a bathroom and turning on a hot shower can do the trick too.

Also, this is the time I like to trim off the edges to make it the right length and make it look a little less messy.

It still needed a little more trimming at this point, but I actually added some pink ribbon throughout the tu-tu to soften it up a little.

HINT: triple knot the ribbon. They can come undone with ease.

What's that? The flower totally matches the onesie? And the headband too?

oh yea, I guess it does :)

Just so it makes sense, The ruffle on the onesie is actually in the shape of a 'V' for the baby girl's name! How fun.

Now wasn't that so super easy?!

If it turns out this is too itchy for that person, try adding some cute leggings or tights!

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I'm linking this post to these parties!

Go check out the other links, you'll get some great new ideas!