Tutorial: Dress up Tutu

Regular tutus lose their fluff in record time. My little trick keeps them fluffy throughout all your child’s play.

Atti got invited to his very first little birthday party for this sweet little girl. They’re in the same class in church and Atti loves to love her. Since I don’t have a girl of my own I had to jump at the chance to make something frilly and dressy that my Atti has no interest in. I’ve seen a lot of play tutu’s lose their fluff so I wanted to see if I could fix that problem.

You’ll need a bunch of tulle and a length of elastic just slightly smaller than the child’s waist. I found this great sparkly tulle and snapped it up in a bunch of different colors. For my little four year old friend I used nearly all of three bolts of 12 yds each.

Sew the elastic together end to end. To make it strong enough to stand up to playtime, I sewed a square and then two diagonal lines. She’ll really have to try to break this.

Cut a whole bunch of pieces of tulle. It came off the bolt 6″ wide, so then I just cut it 24″ long.

This step is what gives the tutu its fluff. Instead of tying the tulle onto the waistband or sewing it on just one side, I pinned the elastic between the two ends of each tulle piece, making a little bubble skirt effect at the bottom. Scrunch the ends to be thinner, then pin in place.

Continue your pinning all the way around the waistband, alternating colors as you wish. Make sure that as you’re pinning you’re taking into account the stretch of the elastic. If you pin them too far apart the pieces will be too sparse when it’s stretched and it won’t look cute.

Sew the tulle pieces in place, stretching the elastic as you go so it retains its flexibility. I sewed over the tulle twice to make sure it was good and stuck.

You can see how the bubble skirt keeps the tutu super fluffy. It’s got more edges to get tangled up to all the edges next to it and the bubble hem offers tons of dimension.

It was a huge hit with our little friend. She put it on as soon as she took it out of the package and wouldn’t take it off until bedtime. The other little girl at the party begged for a turn and there was some super parental diplomacy in action to keep everybody happy. Am I a small person if I say I kind of enjoyed the fuss?