Toddler's Tutu and Crown

 Sewing fun girly things is one of my favourite things to do. The pretty fabrics and fun pattern ideas make my heart glad. Thankfully I have a large number of nieces to choose from whenever I feel like making something particularly girly. My brother and sister-in-law recently had a new baby boy and I felt that it would be nice to make a special gift for his big sister along with the gift for the new baby.

Their daughter is about two and a half, so I decided to make a tutu skirt and a crown. What more could a little girl of that age want than a pretty dress up to play in!

The crown was a simple matter. I had some lovely gold brocade fabric in my stash and simply made a band that would fit the head of my niece. The crown points were inserted into this headband along with some stiff elastic to hold the shape of the crown and to give it a slightly firmer fit. The jewels are made from decorative press studs and placed on the three front points. This part of the project was quick and easy - a half hour project for any experienced seamstress.

The tutu was not so simple. If you do a brief internet search for ideas on how to make a tutu, you will come up with many options, most of which include either a 'no-sew' tutu that involves tying pieces of tulle onto an elastic waistband or a typical gathered skirt with a waistband. The 'no-sew' option is a great one if you are indeed using tulle and your tulle is soft and floaty. I didn't, however, have tulle for this project. Instead I had miles of purple organza in my fabric box that begged to be used on just such an article of clothing. 

Organza is crystal-like and beautiful, but is also slightly stiff to work with and frays very easily. Both of these latter characteristics make it a bit of a challenge to sew. In this case I wanted to create a very full tutu skirt, but I knew that if I simply gathered the organza up and tried to stuff it into an ordinary waistband along with elastic, it would end up extremely bulky. My rather experimental solution was to create a wide waistband which could support several rows/layers of tulle gathers and also have enough room to have the elastic to hold up the skirt at the top of the waistband. (This design sort of copies a true ballet tutu construction technique with a fitted waistband from waist to the top of the hip to hold up the stiff layers of tulle.)

I used the same gold brocade for the waistband. There were three layers of organza in the finished skirt - two were stitched together as the under skirt and one extra full layer formed the overskirt. I stitched each layer on by facing the skirt up to the top of the waistband and then letting the fabric fall back down over the gathered seam. I think I achieved some extra puffiness by doing this and hid the seams at the same time.  I also used the selvage edge as the edge that I stitched onto the waistband. Hopefully this prevents the organza from fraying and the seams pulling out around the waist with rough play. French seams hide the joins in the layers of the skirt.

Overall I'm pleased with the final result. The tutu has fullness and gathers to the waistband without being overly bulky. The lower section of the waistband doesn't sit down particularly well though - It almost needs to be stiffer or have boning to hold it in place (like a real tutu). But as it is only for a toddler, I'm sure she won't notice. 

My sister-in-law informs me that she wore it all day and called herself a princess. What more thanks could an Aunty want?