How to Make a Black and red tulle tutu skirt - now w/ tutorial

[darkfaeriedrowning]

On the weekend I had a friend's 18th to go to and the theme was black & red, and although my whole wardrobe is pretty much made up of those colours I wanted something funky to wear. I've always wanted a tutu and I absolutely LOVE tulle so I thought, why not? The pictures are a bit dodge since I took them myself and the quality's pretty poor, my bad. But anyways, this is what it turned out like..!

This is the skirt with the top I wore it with.




Here it is from the side... I haven't ironed it so it makes my arse look rather large... heh.


Man, my stomach's pasty...

It's not really a tutu per se since there's a skirt underneath. I sewed that on at the last minute because the tulle wasn't thick enough and I'm pretty self-conscious about my legs... it was really see-through! Haha, ah well.




1. Measure waist, halve and cut 2 identical pieces of semi-stretch material about 5cm high.
2. place pieces on top of each other and sew ends diagonally. You might want to hem each piece before sewing together for a neater edge.

3. Cut tulle double the length of your waist or more. The longer the tulle, the more ruffled (poofy) your skirt will be. Sew a single line along the edge of the tulle using the loosest stitch setting (it's 4 on my sewing machine) leaving excess thread on each side.
4. Gather the tulle towards one side by pulling the tulle along the thread (so it looks kinda like the top of curtains) Make sure the gathered length of the tulle is the same as your waist (if not a little more).
5. Fold tulle in half and sew sides together making a tube.

Repeat steps 3-5 making 4 more tubed layers (my skirt has 4 black layers and 1 red)
If you want a black underskirt like mine (so it's not see-through) repeat steps 3-5 but with black material.

6. Layer tubed tulle seamside up on top of each other and pin to waistband, flattening ruffles. Sew tulle to waistband.
7. Flip inside out and there you have it, your new tulle tutu skirt!


***Random notes
Hope you guys can understand these instructions, I kinda suck at explaining things.

You can make an alternative waistband using tubing material, or whatever works for you.
To make your skirt more or less ruffled (poofy) add or subtract layers, or lengthen the cut of the tulle at step 3 to gather it more.
If you're using more than one colour of tulle, when pinning to skirt, make sure it's the opposite order in which you want it to appear. eg. My skirt has 3 layers of black, then red, then black on top. So when making it, I sewed it with a layer of black underneath, then red, then the 3 layers of black.

[jz lyk D]

wow that look really really nice!    i want one!! just a qn, how long did you take to sew it all?

[girlwoo]

omg! that i sooo cute!!  looks great on you too.  what did you use as the waistband?   great job, leslie

[princess_me]

that looks awsome

[darkfaeriedrowning]

wow that look really really nice! i want one!! just a qn, how long did you take to sew it all?

Thanks, it probably took me about 2 or 3 hours all up to make. Sewing it was really easy, the hardest part was trying to pin the tulle to the waist band, it kept itching me and I get frustrated way too easily!

omg! that i sooo cute!! looks great on you too. what did you use as the waistband? great job, leslie

Haha, thanks heaps! The waist band was just some left over semi-stretch material.. I just cut and sewed it so that the bottom was slightly bigger than the top so I can just pull the skirt on and it sits on my hips.

[.:popsi:.]

wow - that's awesome! i love the red/black combination.  it looks all nice and pouffy (in the good way of course (^_^) )

[stargirl52]

Tute??
That is so gorgeous. I may just do that with pink and white, just for general round-the-house wear. I am relatively obsessed with the fairy-ish style, so I would lurve to make that.
Pretty please tute for the tute-tu (wooh).
-G.

[pinkiestarr]

i love that! you did such a good job!

[Magenta]

omfg skjhaskjdfalsdkjfal kjdflaskjdflkasjdro suerlajdflkasdj!!!! That is that skirt i've been dying to make! But i just couldnt see in my head how it would turn out. I was thinking it'd be a bit more fluffed out them that.

So tell me how yo did that. How much tulle did you use? are they strips or just the long yardage wrapped around?

Was it hard to pin the tulle to the waist?  Maybe a tutorial is in order. heh

[amandajones]

that's rad! good job!