One day, as I was getting dressed, Lucky and I had the following conversation:
"Mommy is wearing a tutu!" (I was putting on yoga pants)
"Noooooo, [Lucky], Mommy is not wearing a tutu."
"IIIIIIIII need a tutu."
"Would you like Mommy to make you a tutu?"
"OKAY!"
I credit Daniel Tiger with Lucky's tutu request but I was more than happy to try to make my boy something. This is one of the first items he ever requested! I'm not just happy, I was ecstatic! A few days later Lucky and Mommy (and Daddy and Rowdy) went to the fabric store to buy some tulle to make a tutu for Lucky. Since this was his custom tutu I wanted him to pick out the colors.
I really thought we would leave with one color (most likely orange) but Lucky picked out purple, blue and pink fabrics. I think a multicolored tutu will be stunning! I bought 1.5 yards of purple, and 0.5 yards of each of the blue and pink.
This is a no sew tutu, I plan on just tieing strips onto ribbon. The ribbon I'm using is a shiny wire ribbon leftover from a Christmas Basket. The ribbon was part of a box of leftover wrapping paper that Lucky has been playing in since Christmas Eve... and it is now April! (Seriously, a box of wrapping paper is a great activity for a 2 year old! Lucky likes to "swim" and hide in it.) He likes to drape these ribbons over his head like a necklace and pretend to be an alligator. I don't think he'll mind if I re-purpose one of the ribbons in his tutu.
The tulle is around 54" wide. My 3 ft tall 2 year old doesn't need a 2 ft long tutu, so I cut the fabric in half width wise before cutting the strips.
I folded the fabric in half again (so 4 layers thick with the pink shown) and cut approximate 2" strips. I did the same with the blue fabric. With the purple I cut 2.5-3" strips of fabric and I cut through 8 pieces of fabric at a time to speed things up. The strips didn't have to be perfect since there will be so many bunched together no one will notice.
For each knot, fold the fabric in half and pull the ends through the loop like you would fringe. I held two pieces of purple and two strips of either pink or blue for each knot, alternating the pink and blue sections.
In the end I only ended up with two purple strips left over! Way to go, Mama, you finished up a tutu during nap time! There will be one happy Lucky boy coming downstairs after nap!
I can use this skirt to approximate how much fabric I'd need to make myself a skirt someday. I won't need to guesstimate the amount of tulle to purchase if I can start by measuring this around myself. If I were going to make a tutu for myself I would have made wider strips and not cut the length in half. Oooo, maybe used a long braid of tulle instead of the ribbon to tie the fabric onto.
Shopping aside, this whole project took me less than an hour to complete. I love the way it turned out! Layering the colors really made the skirt rich and vibrant. (If you've watched my yarn dyeing videos then you know I love depth of color!)
I knew that even if Lucky only wore the tutu for 2 minutes it would be worth the effort.
At $1.99/yard and with a discount coupon this was a cheap project to my my boy happy. Plus it is a great addition to our dress up box! I haven't been able to use my sewing machine in a while. Maybe next time I'll make a "proper" gathered tutu.
It turns out that Lucky was initially a little unhappy to see his alligator "costume" in the tutu but thankfully he got over it. The day we created the tutu he only wore it for about 2 songs of dancing, but since then he has requested to put it on on other occasions. He was so happy that I made this for him!
Project started and completed 4/6/2016