My 3.5 year old daughter is into dress ups and make believe at the moment and ask any little girl what they would like to dress up as – it’ll most likely be a princess.  So what does a princess need?  A tiara?  Check.  A pink fluffy tutu skirt?  Ahhh…..this is the post where I show you (kinda) how I made my very fluffy pink tutu skirt.

The usual ingredients needed for a tutu are of course tulle (I actually used 5 rolls of 6″x25 yards), elastic (I used 1″ non-roll elastic) and ribbon (I used 1″x1 yard double faced/sided satin ribbon).

The elastic measurement should be the waist measurement minus 1″ to 2″.  Cut the pretty ribbon in half and attach to both ends of the elastic like so, preferably with a zig zag stitch (my machine is not very good at doing zig zags).  Heat seal both ends of the ribbon or use Fray Stop/Check (I just ran a lighted match across both ends on mine).

Now to decide on the length of the tutu – do you want it short?  Or long?  Or anything in between?  It’s all up to you but of course the longer it is the more tulle you’ll need.  I actually wanted my finished tutu to be 15″ long, which meant I would have to cut my tulle into 31″ long pieces (you need to double the finished length plus 1″).  But I was lazy and had the worst cold ever, so I just wrapped the tulle around my 24″ ruler like this.  I got the idea from here.

Put a couple of rubber bands at the ends of the ruler like this.

And start snipping at both ends of the ruler like this.  Once all your tulle is cut, you can lay them aside.

Now the next step requires the waist elastic to be stretched slightly (mine may have been stretched a bit too much), so that the tutu gather nicely when the waist elastic is relaxed.  You can do this over a chair, like so or over a lampshade or even your thigh (if you’re making a smaller size).  Anything to give the elastic a bit of stretch.

Here comes the fun part.  I stacked 3 pieces of tulle together and tied a square/reef knot in the middle.

Another commonly used knot in tutu making is the lark’s head knot, which I found when tying 3 pieces of tulle together did not give me a secure knot.  Maybe if it was a single piece it might be alright.

Continue tying knots until the whole waist elastic is covered with tulle.

And you should  hopefully end up with something like this.

Put it on your favourite princess and let her run around.

Climb her favourite tree.

Play football.

And be whoever she wants to be.