In a couple of weeks I am running in The Color Run. A fun 5K where you start wearing all white and as you run the 3+ miles, you slowly start to look like a rainbow. A large group of us are running together and several of us wanted to wear tutus for the event. We agreed to make them, as it would be more affordable and it would make for a fun afternoon of crafting.

Earlier this week Breanne, Michelle, and I headed to Joann’s for supplies and then spent the day making seven tutus.

The tutus themselves were fairly easy to make, just time-consuming. I definitely plan to make more in the future!

Materials

Tulle (about 4-6 yards; below I list the measurements we used to calculate yards needed, but there are no strict rules, no right or wrong way. You can make the strips thinner, wider, shorter, or longer. Also, we bought tulle by the yard. They do sell it in rolls, which would have been easier, but it was also considerably more expensive. )

Elastic banding (3/4 ” or 1″)

Needle and thread

Directions

The first step is to make the elastic waist band for the tutu. I made mine 28 inches, knowing that the elastic has some stretch to it.  Since I wanted the waist band to be 28 inches we cut the elastic about 4 inches larger, allowing for two inches to overlap on each side when sewing the ends together.

Sew the two ends of the elastic together. Easy, peasy. Nothing fancy. You can stitch by hand and don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect, you will be covering the stitch work with tulle shortly.

You will need about 60-80 strips of tulle depending on size of tutu but also on the fullness of tutu you desire. Each strip of tulle will need to be cut to 5 inches in width. We were aiming to get 7 cuts out of each yard.  I didn’t use a ruler, just used my best judgment and then used the split in the table to help me cut a straight line (which I am not very good at).

When you have your 5 inch wide strip of tulle, you will cut it in half.  Our strips were 48 inches in length, and we wanted them to be 24 inches.

Once your strips of tulle are cut, the hard, labor intensive part is over and the fun really begins.

Begin attaching the tulle to the elastic band. To knot the tulle on, take one strip fold it in half. Lay the loop, where you just folded it, over the piece of elastic.

Fold the ends under the elastic and pull through the open loop, pulling tighter to secure at the end. Then, add more tulle, remember to keep your pattern going if you have more than one color.

Slide all the knots together, making more room for more tulle. Or slide all the knots apart if you are feeling it’s too full.

Continue adding tulle until skirt is filled and voila, you have a tutu!