How to make a no-sew tutu

 

My darling girls (3 and nearly 5) have been harping on for their own tutu skirts for a while now. Today was the day! While I has making them I put together a no-sew how to, these are super easy and quite cheap to make, perfect gifts for the little fairy-ballerina-princess in your life! I couldn't find a ruler, so chances are other mums can't either, so the measurements are nice and approximate.

For each skirt you need:
About 1 metre each of 3 colours of nylon net. It costs around $5 a metre and is 130cm wide.
About 1 metre of ribbon, I found the 20mm wide the easiest to work with.

Step one: Using a pair of pants that fit the fairy-ballerina-princess in question, measure enough ribbon to fit around her waist and allow approximately 30cm (3-4 adult palm widths) extra to tie a bow at the end.

Measuring the waist band

Step two: At the edges of the pants tie a knot on each side other ribbon.

Knots at the edge of the waistband

Step three: My nylon net is 130cm wide, but is folded in half on the roll. Lay your 3 colours of nylon net (or two or four) on top of each other with the folds all together at the top edge. Cut strips of fabric 15cm wide (or about 1 and a half palms wide) towards the fold. Then cut along the folds to make each strip into two pieces. You should then end up with 12-14 strips of fabric from each colour (or a grand total of about 36-48 if you are using 2 or 4 colours), 15cm wide and 65cm long.

It doesn't matter if they're not straight or even!

Step four: Twist the middle of one of your piece of netting (it makes the knots smaller and tighter if you do this). Loop it over the ribbon, and thread the length of the net behind the ribbon and up through the loop, creating a simple knot. Pull tight. Nylon net is quite durable, but it will tear, so don't pull too hard.

Step five: Keep doing this, keeping them tightly together, between the two knots on the ribbon. I found the first few the most difficult to do, then I found leaning on the pieces I had done against the edge of the bench helped keep the ribbon tight, which made the looping and tightening much easier.

  

Step six: Trim the edges of the ribbon on an angle to help combat fraying. I also held mine over a match to melt the ends, but please be careful if you do this!

All Done! Tie a bow around the middle of your fairy-ballerina-princess, tune into Concert FM (or similar) and let the dancing commence. I also used the scraps to make matching dresses for the girls special soft toy animals.