Sewing a Tutu

My daughter had been twirling around for months pretending to "dance ballet" and saying that she needed a beautiful pink tutu. I decided to make her a tutu for Christmas. Off to  pinterest I went to search for tutorials. The seamstress in me had to choose the tutorial for sewing a tutu. I decided that I would follow the tutorial from starlight masquerade . I searched everywhere local  for  tulle yardage and it wasn't available so I went to Michaels Craft store and bought a roll of tulle. It was a huge mistake and I wasted hrs trying to get my ruffler to co-operate. I  nearly lost what little sanity I have left.  

The tulle was only 6" wide. At 6" width, I had to cut so many strips to get the width needed. My ruffler tangled up the tulle at at 0.5 stitch length. at 2.0 stitch length, it was still a frustrating mess. It was too late. Christmas was close and there was no way I would get the tutu done. The tutu project was abandoned. Surely ruffling tulle shouldn't be this difficult.

Without the pressure of a deadline, I  was able to locate some yardage of pink tulle and pink satin for the waist band.  My ruffler liked this tulle much better for some reason. I used a stitch length of 2. I think if I make another tutu  I will use a 2.5 stitch length. I determined the elastic size by measuring my daughter's waist and subtracting 2 "  and allowing approx 1 " overlap for the elastic.

Here are a few pics of the process and the final product.

Ruffled tulle with duct tape to tame the ruffles

 Ironing the waistband

Adding the satin waist band