Too Easy Tutu

I made these little tutus for my niece. She's celebrating her second birthday and should be coming up on that too-cute dress-like-a-fairy-princess imaginative play age. At least that's what I'm hoping - ha!

My sewing machine and I have been having fits lately, even after a trip to the repair shop. I wasn't about to try sewing tulle until we were on better terms. Thankfully I found patterns for no sew tutus here and here.

Since I only have sons, I have to channel my girly craft energy into other people's daughters. Their gifts are almost always a first run, for better or worse, and usually involve a learning curve. Thankfully this project was easy, but I did store a few tid-bits to remember the next time around.

I used three yards of tulle per tutu (2 yards of regular tulle, 1 yard of glittered tulle). Remember, my project was for a two-year-old; an older child's tutu would need more fabric. Here I tied three layers of tulle per knot (2 pieces of regular with 1 piece of glittered on top). The glittered tulle was stiffer compared to the plain colors and made for larger knots that I anticipated. I would buy more yardage the next time around so I could squish the knots closer together.

In addition to the tulle, JoAnn's also carries paper mache wands, so I bought two and painted them to mach. While the paint was wet, I added ultra-fine glitter to the star. I then tied a few strands of ribbon and tulle just underneath the stars to make pretty streamers. (They're hard to see in the photos, but show up better on the black/purple tutu.)

Since my niece lives across the country, I had to try fitting these on my own two-year-old son. The poor boy ran away screaming. But as soon as my older son challenged him to a fairy wand sword fight, all was well again. (Too bad I had to confiscate the wands so they didn't break - they were meant as part of the gift, after all. LOL.)