A Tutu For Maddie

 

What does every girl need to complete her wardrobe? A pink tutu.

During my many meanderings on etsy, I've often come across tutus and thought that they would be perfect for Maddie. And after talking with Christie (her mom) we decided that she needed one. So after

5000 times of asking myself why I just didn't do the simple tie the tulle onto the elastic tutu,
32 yards of tulle,
26 inches of ribbon,
17 inches of elastic,
2 machine jams,
and 1 very patient husband

later Maddie has her very own pink tutu. I really hope she likes it but I'll have to wait 'till Christmas to find out.

For those interested in the construction portion. I cut the 32 yards of tulle into 24x6 inch strips. I then folded those pieces in half to make 12x6 inch pieces and gathered them at a corner. From there I took elastic string and proceeded to square knot the string while inserting the gathered inch or so of the tulle corner inbetween each square knot segment to get something that looks like the picture below.

So when finished knotting all the tulle, I ended up with this.

From here it got really tricky and this is probably why no one makes tutus this way, but instead just ties the tulle onto elastic. But I didn't want this tutu to look like that. So what I did was sew 26" of 4" wide ribbon together to make a band. Then I basted the ribbon onto the tulle (this was the part that made making the tutu possible). From there I sewed the ribbon onto the tulle (I ended up using about 20 hairbands to try to keep the tulle under control while sewing) while leaving an opening for the 1" elastic. I then inserted the elastic and sewed up the seam. I wanted to make sure the elastic would work so we had to try it on!

I can't wait for her to see it!