I love it when clients want something outside of the square. Here are a few photos of putting together a traditional tutu in a beautiful fuchsia taffeta with a bit of a Spanish flair in the choreography and music. Instead of a rose in her hair she wore a pink and white peony

Bodice with shaped nude insert

The client already had a fabric in mind and brought it along with her. Unfortunately it was a stretch taffeta so I had to stabilise it with iron interfacing. This meant there would be no stretch in the bias panels and too much stretch in the piping … but we managed! We were going for a design where the colour would sing so the bodice design was pulled back to simplicity; venise lace and a bit of bling.

venise lace, rhinestones, filigree sequins and seed beads

A lovely touch to the skirt was the addition of a layer of soft fuchsia bridal tulle as the very top layer. It was 2/3 the depth of the skirt but cut into very long points to give a graded effect but not the smooth effect of ombre painting.

top tulle layer

The plate echoed the design on the bodice and was decorated simply with rhinestones. We kept it very small, really just a hip plate to allow the colour of the bodice to extend to the skirt without overwhelming it.

small tutu plate

I added some sleeves with the same trim and here we have the beautiful tutu.

completed tutu

And it goes without saying that this looks so much better on a real dancer.

The beautiful Jasmine

strong colours are beautiful on stage

Sian and her Mum Carmel contacted me very early in the year to book a spot for a consultation. I love that sort of forward planning. It certainly helps me in this job! We went through a few colour schemes and had almost decided when Sian emerged from the stash with a pale mint brocade with soft gold threads through it. We matching this with a light gold venise lace trim. We toyed with the idea of a sparkle tulle under the ivory net.

starting point

Sian wanted understated elegance with shimmer rather than bling so we decided on a simple bodice design but with a deep V nude insert.

front point

To highlight the gold in the fabric the top of the bodice and the bottom of the basque were piped with gold but the bottom of the bodice is self-piped so there’s no interruption in line.

basque piped with gold

Deep V piped with gold

The venise lace needed only a little bit of sparkle so I added some ss20 AB coated pale green rhinestones. I will embellish this with a little bit of hand-sewing and beads and sequins later.

venise lace

venise lace and hand beaded embellishment

Instead of a traditional plate they wanted little trapezoid petals they had seen on one of New Zealander Janice Barnden’s tutus. Janice makes beautiful tutus so do look out for Pas de Basque tutus. I fiddled with a shape and proportions for a while and found that 8 petals gave a nice balance.

paper petal template

petals aligned

They looked a bit lonely and sad so I jazzed them up with a little of the venise lace cut into small appliqués and given a bit more bling with some acrylic faceted and crystal rhinestones.

petal bling

Next came the skirt. In the picture below you can just see the hoop casing on row 4. While this tutu will not be hooped, if over time the net softens the tutu can be brought back to life by inserting a hoop, which is much easier to do if it already has a casing.

row 4 going on

I hand tack traditional skirts but plastic gun tacks will do exactly the same job. I guess I just like keeping old skills alive.  There are many ways to tack a skirt but I prefer the fluidity you get from individual swing tacks around the tutu. I do 4 rows of swing tacks … you get faster at it! The floor of my studio is covered with little thread tails though after trimming each hand tied knot. I guess there must be about 60-80 per row.

tacking equipment and thread tails

Once the skirt is finished it’s time to put everything together. I hand basted the bodice to the basque and then sewed it doen by machine leaving the front point free. I placed the petals evenly around the basque and tacked them into place. I put the glimmer net under them to see how it looked and just lived with it for a couple of hours before I sewed it in place.

glimmer net or not?

Sydney’s weak autumn sun managed to make the glimmer net sparkle (when the sun emerged!) and I decided it could stay.

glimmer net at home

I think the oversirt adds a subtle interest to the tutu skirt and brings out the gold colour. It will look pretty on stage because the under side still has the strong ivory colouring.

lovely deep V

I’m rather taken with this understated tutu. The brocade is lovely and has the softest gold touches to it with fine gold lurex thread through it.

Hand beading

A tiny bit of hand-beading nicely extends the line of the venise lace and … it’s cheaper than therapy!

completed tutu

I loved making this tutu.