Make It - Toddler TuTu Dress

My nieces birthday this week is giving me lots of options to get crafty, after her mum's present buying ban.

Today's been a busy day, after finishing off her appliqué tshirt earlier I pulled out my tulle rolls and got snipping. 

I started with a small crochet tube top, size 14x15cm. This size fits up to about 3 years. I chose lilac for this dress as she's not really a 'pink everywhere' baby.

For tulle, I'm using 3 colours; a deep purple, lilac and a very pale pink. I like to use similar tones and blend them together to create a more interesting effect. 

I have bought tutu supplies from online suppliers in the UK before, but I prefer to buy them from China as they are significantly cheaper. 

A 25 yard roll in the UK costs £2.20 from Raindrops Boutique with a postage rate of £3.40. They are a great supplier, I use them when I need tulle or tube tops in a hurry as they have a good colour range, and 48 hour delivery (faster is available).

A 100 yard roll from China costs around £4-5, with no shipping charge. The downside is that it takes around 28 days to get here. I use AliExpress as they have excellent customer protection. 

Anyway, back to the make. 

The first step is to work out how long you want your first layer (the underneath layer). This is for a 1st birthday, so I went for strips of 56cm, which will give a length of about 27cm. I cut one as a guide, lay it flat, and use this to cut enough lengths in the colour I want for the first layer. Here the white tulle is my guide piece, and the purple is from the roll I'm cutting. 

For the base layer, I'm sticking to straight cut edges. I just need a basic poofy skirt underneath to give it shape and colour. 

Once I've cut plenty, I can start attaching. I like to work sideways, so I lay my tube top down with the openings at the left and right sides. The left for my is the bottom where I will be attaching the tulle. 

For each strip, I fold it in half, then at the fold end gather it up in a concertina style so it's only about 1cm wide. It needs to be narrow enough to fit through one of the small holes in the tube top so I take care with the gathering. 

If you stretch out the bottom edge of the tube top, you'll see squares of crochet with big gaps inbetween, it's these gaps that I attach the tulle to. 

I push the gathering through the hole from above, open out the loop, and pull the tails of tulle through the loop. Then pull the tails straight down away from the tube top tightening the knot.

This is how the knots should look once they're pulled taut. I often have to tease the edges of the tulle to pull out any bulk in the knot.

I kept going all the way round the bottom of the tube top until it looked like this -

Now for the next layer. This time I used 2 colours of tulle, alternating pale pink and lilac. I cut the lengths at 46cm, and then folded them in half length ways to snip the ends making a point.

I moved up a row in the holes, working above the squares the separate the purple tulle, and knotting into the gap between them. The technique is exactly the same. 

I find in double layer tutu skirts that it is easier at this point to flip the top layer up on to the tube top once the knot is taut.

Now the skirt is finished, it's time for finishing touches and straps. 

First of all, I ran a strip of thin right ribbon around the bottom, looping it round the bottom of the tube top, through the holes I'd used for the top layer and between the bottom layer strips. I started at the seam of the tube top, which is the back centre, and ended it with a pretty bow. It's important to keep it loose so that the tube top still has plenty of stretch.

At the front, I took another length of lilac tulle, this time around 65cm, and found the top centre of the front. I fed one end through the top square, and brought the two end back together so that the centre fold of the tube strip is at the very top. Then I weaved the ends down the centre line to the bottom, split them each diagonally up and sideways over the front of the tube top one square, then directly down one square so that each end is separated by one square just above the first row of tulle. I made sure the line of tulle was loose so as not to affect the stretch of the tube top, and tied the ends in a double bow.

Just the straps left! This takes two lengths of lilac tulle, each 30 cm long. I fed each end through a square 2 holes down from the top, midway from the centre to the side. One end at the front and one end at the back, both from inside to the back. I tied a double knot to secure the tulle and repeated it on the other side.

So that's it, the dress is complete! Just froof out the skirt and make a little girl very happy! 

P.S. I learnt something new today. When my boyfriend puts his feet on the pouffe close to my strips of tulle, I make a noise like Beaker singing the Crazy Frog!