A Busy Mom's Blog: Tulle Petticoat Tutorial

October is a busy month for me! I have two birthday parties and a bridal shower to host. I have several different projects underway for each event. Elsie's birthday outfit is first and this petticoat was actually going to go under the first skirt I made, but I decided that it was too cute to go under a skirt. So, I switched gears, added a flower and some leggings and a birthday outfit was born!

Elsie has been twirling non-stop since she's had it on. I'm so glad she loves it so much! Here is how I did it...

Tulle Petticoat

What you'll need:

Tulle- amount depends on the size of your dress/skirt, I used 1.5 yards for each skirt

spare fabric for the waist of the fabric- I needed 1/4 of a yard, but that was pushing it- any size over 3T may need a 1/2 yard
1/2 inch elastic- enough to go around the waist of the dress

Measure the skirt you're putting the petticoat under and add 2 inches. You can always trim the tulle once you have it on. Its best to go long.

Take that number and divide it by 3. This is the length of your petticoat. 1/3 is the waistband made of regular fabric and 2/3 is for the tulle skirt.

Waistband:

Cut your fabric doubling the length you just figured out for the waist by the measurement of your hips around plus 3 inches. For a 3t, this was 8 3/4 by 25 inches.

Fold in half and sew the short sides together leaving a 3/4" gap at the top. Sew 3/4 from the fold to create a long tube for the elastic.

Hem the bottom of the skirt by double folding the fabric under and sewing.

Tulle:

Cut 6 pieces of tulle 2/3 your length calculation by the width of the bolt.

Pin your first piece of tulle to the folded hem of the waistband. Pin the two ends to the ends of the waistband and find the middle of the tulle strip- pin this to the middle of the waistband. This ensures that your tulle will cover the skirt evenly.

Pin the rest of the tulle in small folds or gathers to the hem. Repeat with second tulle piece. Sew to hem. You may be able to sew more than 2 pieces of tulle, I wanted to make sure everything was straight and evenly dispersed.

Repeat with the remainder of the tulle sewing every 2 layers. When you get to the last two layers of tulle, hold up the skirt to see where you may need more tulle. I bunched the last two pieces more than the first four.

Once all the tulle is secured, sew the hem one more time with a zig zag stitch.

Bring the ends of the waistband together and sew a 1/2 inch seam being careful not to sew over the pocket you left for the elastic.

Feed elastic through the pocket, sew ends together. Sew pocket together.

I used a fabric flower tutorial from pinterest that I can't find now... if I find it I will post later or I will do a quick tutorial on it. I think it turned out very cute, but since I was planning on linking the blog with this part, I didn't take pictures. I suggest searching on pinterest and google until you find one you like.

And you're done... Doesn't it look fabulous?