Tutu Tuesday

Some of you might have already guessed and if you popped into the Ravelry, you saw...

All that giltter tulle was for a tutu! After taking the girls fabric shopping back in August, there were plans in the works for making tutus for the pair of them. But I wanted to practice first, so I was planning on making one for Hallowe'en, when I'll be trick or treating with Sam's adorable monsters.

Last year, on a whim, I picked up a masquerade mask similar to this one

Mine had red in it, so I though a red and black tutu would be fun to pair with it. I was planning on sewing one, but when I got to Fabricland, the team there had just finshed making several, using and almost completely no-sew technique. I wasn't planning on making mine until October... but hey..

The Fabricland team used special crochet elastic trim as the base for the tutu

Basically, you cut a piece big enough to go around your waist (it's VERY stretchy, so several inches smaller than your waist is ideal) and sew the ends together to make a round band (this is the only sewing in the whole project). I think ideally, serging the ends would be best, but I manged it with a couple rows of zigzag stitch.

Next... you cut your tulle. One of the women at Fabricland gave me a great tip... roll your tulle up like a burrito and cut it. Tulle is a pain to cut, so this makes it easier (and quicker). So, I folded my tulle in half lengthwise, then widthwise, then rolled it all up

Then with very sharp scissors (trust me, you don't want to try to cut tulle with dull ones) I cut strips approximately 1.5 inches wide. The great thing about this project is precision is not necessary. It's your pieces aren't perfectly even, or even straight, it's not going to matter in the long run.

I then cut each strip in half, which gave me strips about 12 inches long. The length and width are entirely up to you  and how you want the finished tutu to look.

Oh - another tip. You may have noticed that I appear to be outside... that's because...  GLITTER. EVERYWHERE. Dave puts up with a lot of craft mess, but one thing he can't stand is glitter in the house.

 If you can't work outside, buy tulle without glitter, or, put down a drop cloth. You might also want to do it away from pets......

I thought the cats would enjoy being outside while I worked away on my tutu...

 And for a while, Tux was quite happy to nap under the roses. But eventually....

He decided my lap was a good place to chill.

And where one cat is good....

Two cats are better? Right...

Wrong! This particular one thought the tulle strips were just a delightful new toy!

But back to the tutu....

With the strips all cut, and the waistband sewn, and cats distracted, it's simply a matter of knotting your strips around your waistband. I found a slipknot was easiest. Fold your strip in half, slip the folded end through one of the holes in the band, creating a loop..

Then slide the ends of the strip through the loop and pull tight. Do this all the way around the bottom off the band, creating the first layer

Here's another tip: This is not a fast project. I sat down to it, thinking I'd be done the whole thing in an hour. Wrong. That first layer took and hour and a half  alone(that doesn't include cutting time). This is a full afternoon-long project.

So maybe after that first layer, get up, take a break. (Throw a stew in the slow cooker like I did) Come back, extricate the cat from his new tutu fort...

...and start the second layer. I'm not gonna lie. The first layer is the easiest. By the second layer, it gets hard to see where you're tying, and the bottom layer wants to catch and pull into the knots of your new layer, and tulle is just generally a horrible fabric to work with. But as I said before, the great thing about this is, precision is NOT key... miss a hole, no biggie! Mess up your colour sequence... don't worry! In the grand scheme of things, the tutu is one giant mess of tulle - no one is going to notice!

In the end, two layers of tulle took about 3 hours, four yards of tulle and less than a yard of crochet elastic

I would like mine a bit more full, so I'll be heading back for some more tulle. And maybe some ribbons. That's the beauty of this, you can use anything that won't fray. You can even tie on beads, or bells or all kinds of embellishments...

I think 4 yards of tulle is enough for a child-size one. An adult, I'd suggest between 5-6 yards, depending on the length and fullness you want (I'm a size 16, and my strips, once tied are around 6 inches long).

And remember.. if you don't like glitter.. buy the non-glitter tulle. By the end of this, I was covered in glitter....

And so were the cats... We are going to have sparkly poops for weeks!