While I have how to make a tutu instructions for a little girl (or adult!) and how to make a tutu for your kitten, I was thinking this weekend that it would be cute for Charlotte’s barbie collection to have a tutu collection!

I have never made a tutu this small and yes, having to work with elastic this tiny has its downs, so your fingers must be nimble.

Time: Took me about an hour from start to finish because of how much I had to concentrate on getting my fingers under the elastic.

Gather up:

• 1 Barbie
• 1/8th inch elastic (approx $1.29)
• thread
• needle
• tulle
• something to wrap your elastic around. Spray bottle, shot class, etc.

1) First I took out the elastic and wrapped it around barbies waist to measure the initial length. When you make a tutu and wrap the tulle, the elastic will stretch as the tulle goes on..so in a normal tutu you would deduct a few inches from the waistline to account for that. However since this elastic doesn’t have room to spare on this tiny of a length, I decided to deduct at the end and went ahead and sewed the two ends to each other based on the original measurement.

2) You will need to find an object to wrap your elastic around so you can put the tulle on it. I was able to use a spray bottle.

3) You will have to decide if you want a long or short tutu. Take your measurement length and double it. Cut your tulle. You will be making a slip knot under the elastic so you actually fold your tulle together.

(this is why you double it..so if you want a skirt 4 inches long, you will need to cut in strips of 8 inches).

As you can see in this photo, originally the elastic only fit on the cap of the bottle, but as I was adding tulle, it stretched out and I was able to move it down over the bottle itself.

The first and second picture shows the slip knot. You fold the tulle in half and slip the loop under the elastic. Then with the hanging pieces, you  slip under the loop and pull tight. This creates a knot.

You can make tiny knots or larger ones. However the smaller the knot, the more your elastic will stretch out and make for a bigger waist at the end.

I have demonstrated both here.

4) Continue all the way around, only leaving elastic showing if step #5 applies to you.

5) Once I got close, I took the skirt off the bottle and trimmed the excess elastic (basically making the skirt smaller) and resewed the ends and then added the last few pieces of tulle to cover where I had sewn and finish the skirt.

6) Trim the ends of your skirt so its even (I actually do this as I create it, but its fine to do at the end).

You can also hot glue rhinestones, flowers, ribbons and more to really customize a look.

7) Let your model walk the cat walk!

I am sure Ken (and your little girl) will appreciate your hard work!

~Trisha