No-Sew Tutu
I love making homemade toys and gifts for my daughter and her friends, so when Ella and two of her friends started taking pre-ballet classes, I naturally had to make some no-sew tutus!
I had to make three tutus, and I wanted to involve the girls in the process as much as possible. Since these tutus are really forgiving, I had the girls practice their knot-tying with the layers of tulle, and I just went over the finished tutus with a pair of scissors to remove any extremely long ends.
Materials to Make Your Own Tutu:
- Tulle, 2-3 colours and a total of at least 30-40 feet
- Elastic headband
- Scissors
- Large square of cardboard or DVD case
Ensure that the elastic headband will fit comfortably around your child’s waist or hips. I purchased adult headbands and they were perfect – leaving no lines on the girls after 10 minutes of wear, but also not slipping down.
I went with these elastic-style headbands rather than the wide fabric headbands because I thought these would have less of a chance of slipping and folding over.
A DVD case is the perfect size for your layers of tulle. Wrap the tulle around the DVD case several times and make a single cut to create several uniform-sized pieces for your homemade tutu.
For tying the knots, I created double layers of tulle by laying one piece directly over another and double-knot tied it around the headband.
After showing the girls a few times how to wrap the tulle evenly around the headband and tie a double-knot, I allowed them to do it. I had to add in extra layers when they were done just to fill out the tutu a bit more, but I think they did an awesome job!
I love how the contrasting colours create some depth, and the double folds of tulle make it look like a professional tutu — no one at their dance classes could tell which of our girls was wearing a homemade tutu versus a store-bought tutu.
The only way you can tell that this is a homemade, no-sew tutu is if you look inside at the headband — from the outside, it looks perfect!
Would your little ballerina love her very own no-sew tutu? Be sure to pin this for later and check out my collection of 18 Ballet Books for Children.
I didn’t have any expectations regarding that title,
but then the longer I was amazed. The author did a great job.