Tutorial | How To Make a Tutu using partially recycled material | DIY

I don't like to waste anything that can be used for another purpose

Last week, one of my daughter's clothing ripped, leaving the elastic torn from the rest of the clothing. I thought this was a good moment to try and make a tutu. I've been wanting to make one for some weeks now but the lack of energy has not given me the option to hunt for elastics. Those are really needed to create the tutu, so here goes nothing and see if this works for a nice Christmas baby tutu.

Recycled elastic

Before I start creating the tutu with recycled elastic coming from the old clothing of my daughter, I don't know how this works out. If the elastic will hold or not. But I want to try it and we'll see if it works out. If not, only some of my time is wasted as the tule is not that expensive, thankfully.

Tutu size and needed material

Before we can start creating a tutu, we need to do some research regarding the waiste size and length for the corresponding size.
To know which size length and waste you need for a child, you can either measure it or look for a size chart online. There are plenty available. I used this one for guidance:

Source

As mentioned above, I will use a recycled elastic for one of the tutus, and therefore I measured the size of this elastic to know what size the tutu will be. It will be a tutu size for 6-12 months old. Meaning I will create a tutu that's 9 inches / 23 cm long. To make the cutting easier, I will now explain how to make an easy tool to cut the tule in equal parts.

The tule cutting board from cardboard

To make cutting the tule easier, I'm going to create a tool made from cardboard to easily wrap the tule around and afterward cut it. This way all tule will be the same length. You will need 2 equal parts of the cardboard and one smaller part to glue them together and have some space to cut the tule. To determine what the size of the cardboard tool needs to be, you will need to check the tutu length, in my case that's 9 inches (about 23 cm), so the board I will use will be 23 cm = 1 cm added so that I have some extra tule to cut the edges. The tule is 15 cm wide, I will add another cm to the board as well, so the measurements of the board will be 24 x 16 cm for this size tutu.

How much tule needed in total

Before you start wrapping the tule around the board, you will need to know how many parts of tule are needed for the tutu size you're going to make. It partially depends on how full you want the tutu to be, there are many blogs out there with different answers, I can tell you how much tule I used for this tutu.

In total, I ended up using 3 full rolls (different colors) every 9 meters of tule for this tutu. Meaning, to get a full tutu this size with 3 colors, 27 meters is a good guidance if you like this particular fluffiness of the one I made.

When I started the project, I was convinced two rolls would be enough, and at that point, I planned on using green and red tule. As I made a small mistake cutting the red tule, I decided to go for other colors instead. But in the image above you can see the things I needed (plus 1 tule roll) to make this tutu.

Let's sum that up

I wanted to test if a recycled part of elastic waistband would be good enough to make a tutu, and therefore I didn't buy any elastic to create this project, I also used recycled cardboard to make my cutting tool, and on top of that only a glue gun, measuring tool, pencil, and scissors. The tule was actually the only thing I bought for this project, making it a cheap and fun crafting project to do!

Let's get started!

It's actually super simple to apply the tule to the tutu, you will see that in a bit. I have shared this kind of knot before when I wrote a tutorial on macrame knotting. It's called the square knot.

The end result

It was quite hard to get the right colors displayed in this image as two colors are soft colors and one is more booming. I tried to capture it inside the house (even with extra light!) but it was hard. This picture turned out best:

I hope you enjoyed seeing how easy it is to make a tutu, even if you don't have an elastic waistband at home, you could use recycled elastic from old clothes. It will save you a few pennies in the end.

I love how it turned out, now that this trial was successful, I will buy elastic and start making them in different colors and with all new materials.

Thanks for stopping by!