HOW TO MAKE A TUTU DRESS

This is no ordinary tutorial for a TUTU dress, this is THE post for THE best TUtu dress EVER! Every little girl deserves an absolutely magical moment all her own in a fairy princess tutu dress. To make this dress, you will need:



1) basic sewing utensils/sewing machine
2) about 15 yards of tulle (Im using 7.5 yds of eggplant, 7.5 yds of hot pink)
3) some matching flowers (for the front, variations include bows, broches)
4) elastic in the thickness of your choice (the amount needed will be the circumference around your little princess' chest -right under her armpits)
5) some satin ribbon for binding (Im using one in hot pink and one in plum, 1.5"wide)you can use just one color too
6) one spool of organza ribbon (im using hot pink in 5/8")
7) 2 small packettes of crystallized embellishments (those little flat backed diamond like thingies)
8)some fabric glue to adhere the crystals (should dry clear)

it might seem like a whole lot of stuff, but i had some great coupons and spent about 27$ in all, so dont fear it beats spending $100+ on one thats already made. But, if you dont want to work on it, you can always look on etsy for some pretty gorgeous ones already made. I am making this one for my friend's 2 year old's bday.

we are going to start by measuring your little girl's lenght from under her armpit to her ankles and then again around her chest, right under her armpits.

for heylies I got 18" around the chest and 22" long (she is a dainty little one)

(1) I cut the elastic to 16" long (I took the chest measurement and subtracted 2, because as you attach the tulle, the elastic will stretch)

(2) lay out the tulle and cut into strips about 3-4" wide and as long as your pit to ankle-in my case 22" long



(3) then I sew the edges of the elastic together, you can do this by hand or on the machine. (some people staple it, but i think this can be risky since a stappler can pull and then hurt the child)

(4) once we have all of our gazillion pieces cut out, you need to begin putting them around the elastic, alternating the colors. To do this, just make a simple knot around the elastic with the tulle itself.



(5)once you have attached all of your tulle and its nice and full, we will cut our organza ribbon into different length strips. (you will need about 12 strips, from 8" to 16") Then we will go around the tulle and randomly attach the ribbon with knots.

(6) once its all in place we will go ahead and sew it all in place with the sewing machine or by hand by stitching along the bottom of the elastic all around.



(8) once all of the tulle is in place and all sewn,take strips of organza and attach with little knots to the elastic. you need to grab your glue and and little embellishments and add one to each strip of organza (this entire step is selective)


(9) our next step is probably the hardest, we are going to braid the satin ribbons around the elastic so that is creates a very elegant and non-itchy dress. Do this by starting from the back side (the place where you stitched your elastic together). you are going to have to measure here to make sure that you have enough ribbon to hang evenly on both sides once you wrap. So, leave about 18" of hanging ribbon, and then go all the way around.



(10) we are going to attach the satin ribbon with a quick hand stich to the bottom of the elastic and just wrap around, through the tulle in order to cover it and create a braid look, if you are using two colors, just alternate.

(11) leave about 18" of excess ribbon hanging from the back, you should have four total pieces hanging (you can use just one color if you want) this is for the bow.

*Tip: dont forget to fray check the edges!
Our dress is done. Now we are going to EMBELLISH!

I bought some plum colored flowers that come in stems from walmart and they were like .50cents on sale. YAY! I took them off the stem and removed all of the plastic pieces carefully so as not to mess up the flower. Then I attached the pieces to eachother with a few hand stiches (you can use your machine too) with matching thread.



I took a piece of satin ribbon and measured around the neck of heylies to the front edge of the dress (so as to create a halter so the dress isnt contantly sliding). To attach this, I just wrapped around the edge and knotted into place then quick stitched it.

Then I attached the flowers in the arrangement of my choice to the very front of the dress, right over the halter.



Once this was all done, we only have one more step to go..

ADD THE LITTLE RHINESTONES....i put them sporadically throught with a small amount of glue.



VOILA!!! a dress fit for a princess!