How To Make The Easiest Tutu Ever

I made Little Una Fox a tutu to wear to her peacock birthday party.  I have looked at a couple of different ways to make tutu's and decided that I was going to keep it really simple as I intended to decorated this one with a felt peacock tail.  So the method I used to make the tutu is so simple there is almost no sewing involved.  You can add the peacock tail or not of course.  Here's how I did it:

You Will Need:
For the tutu
elastic approx 2cm wide - a length roughly 4cm larger than your child's waist measurement
tulle - I used almost all of 3 x 5m rolls in 3 different colours
ribbon in a contrasting colour 3 x length of your child's waist.
scissors
needle and thread - optional

For the peacock feathers
purple, green, blue and brown felt
paper & pencil
scissors
pins
glue
ribbon
needle and thread
gold thread - optional


To make the tutu:
1.  Measure your child's waist and cut a length of elastic approx 4cm larger than this.  Create a waistband by sewing the two ends together.  If you really can't sew you could just knot it.
(The extra 4 cm is to allow you to sew the two ends together and also the thickness of the tulle wrapped around the waistband of the tutu needs to be taken into account in the waist measurement - so, I'm being generous with the elastic.)


2. Measure from your child's waist to your child's knee and add about 2cm.  Cut strips of tulle double this length and approx 14cm wide.

3.  Loop your tulle round the elastic and then back through on itself; see steps 1, 2 & 3 in the pictures above.  Keep doing this until you have completely covered the elastic waist band, alternating the different colours of tulle; and voilà...

4. I also threaded a piece of contrasting ribbon through the tulle loops at the waist to tie in a bow at the front or back if you are not making the peacock tail.


To make the feathers:
I made 10 feathers as this number forms a nice symetrical triangle pattern, you could do more or less.

1. Draw a design for the feathers onto A4 paper and from this make a template for each part of the feather; see the pictue below:

2.  Assign each part of the feather a colour then pin that piece of the template to the felt and cut around.  Make as many as you want feathers. Then with fabric glue, used very sparingly, you can glue each section of the feather one on top of the other.

3. If you wish you can also embroider lines of gold onto each feather.  I used a few extra stitches to secure the layers of the feather design.

4. Sew the first few feathers to the ribbon you have looped through the waistband of the tutu.  Then each remaining feather can be sewn to lengths of ribbon and then the ribbon sewn to the waistband.  Vary the lengths of the ribbon so that the peacock feathers hang at different lengths down the back of the skirt.