Post No. 100, or: The tulle tutu, too?

Hey there, lovelies!

So, FINALLY, I finished the project of a (mostly) no-sew tutu, but I have come to the conclusion I'd do some things differently next time, which is still good because it also is a learning experience :).

Here are some pieces of well-meant advice from my side...

Number 1) Don't shop for sewing essentials at shops which offer "cheap prices"... At least for me it was horrible to thread a needle I bought from there with yarn I bought there; I ended up breaking the only thing that really helped me thread the needle... And a pair of scissors, too, which I bought there. Yes, I did laugh a lot about this, but still... Please buy your essentials from shops selling better quality yarn, needles, etc., you name it. I will definitely do this next time, and I am quite sad because still I wasted that money on the sewing essentials in that other shop... Ah well.

Number 2) If you are planning on making a tulle tutu, too, then be prepared for the elastic band to twist... A lot. Which also makes it less elastic, and extends it to a length that is way too long at times. (I was planning on wearing it around my waist, but now it is even longer than my hips' circumference, so... I wasn't prepared for this.) Next time, I will try a shorter length for the elastic band or sew it together in two different parts after attaching all the knots of fabric.

Number 3) Buy more tulle for the next attempt. I bought eight meters worth of tulle, and it happened to work well, but now I don't have that much left over. I have several ideas what I could do with that, though, so don't worry :P.

Some other things I learned were: Sewing, despite all the mishappenings, is so much fun. I used a backstitch (mostly) for sewing together the ends of the elastic band, in case anybody wondered. I am kind of proud I mostly did all this myself, even though I did get some help from my mum with the ending knot of the yarn thread (She twisted the thread around the needle three times and then pulled this to the actual thread below the needle.). I also was kind of scared that the fact my perfectionism was pretty much not there at all would mess with the project itself. But contrary to this, perfectionism would have made it look really odd I feel. Of course, I am not telling you to let go of all imagination of how it should turn out in the end, but please don't pressure yourself. I surely wasn't, and that was a good starting point for me! :)

I cannot wait for another sewing project. I thought I could make something like the following with the remaining tulle:

• A black veil... All the tulle I have is black, and the goth in me already goes "Yippeee!" just imagining this, so... ;)
• Something like arm / leg warmers. I wouldn't need that much extra for this project, but still... We'll see!
• An eye patch. Even if the tulle were just for decorating the actual eye patch, I would still love it.
• I could sew some pieces of the tulle onto other items of clothing that I own to make them look more interesting. Maybe formed like letters?

Who knows...

Anyways, when I asked my sister to take some photos of me wearing the tulle tutu, one of our cats decided to interrupt it and looked at me all the time like, "I want to jump up to you, but... but... I can't ;_;!!", which made me remove the tutu as quickly as I could, and many photos were photobombed by him, too :D (I don't mind, though. I love this little guy, he can photobomb whatever he wants!!)...

So here's a photo of me doing some weird posing and if you find a hint concerning my cat, please tell me. (I know he is in the photo, but maybe not everyone will spot him :P!!)

Editorial posing at the PROFESSIONAL photo shoot.

And, yes, this REALLY is the 100th post. I cannot believe it either. I am so happy I want to hug the entire world now... Hope you are having a great day today, too.

Return of the FAULENZER.

It seems even to me that I am always just popping in to say what has happened and to apologise for the previous period of absence here, so I will leave it to this. It is not like I have done NOTHING in the mean time, though...

I did start writing letters again. It is slowly, but surely getting better. I found two new penpals very recently, one lovely lady from Malaysia, and another one from the US. Will not go into the details concerning these people, but it makes me happy to, for example, draw / paint for these people... To share what is important to us with each other... To learn about them, and their home as well... Ah well. I am planning on sending more letters soon, but I cannot promise them all going out in NO TIME, as I do want to put some effort into writing them and preparing stuff for people. But... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. ;)

I recently learned about the death of a loved one, and decided to write a song for them... It is still not very easy to deal with all this; the wounds are still quite fresh so-to-say.

And then, I started working on a tulle tutu this week. I cannot promise to really finish it this week, because there is still a lot of stuff waiting to be done OTHER than the skirt, but I do hope I will be able to make it still. I also bought some new sewing needles and yarn yesterday. And something to repair broken jeans' fabrics with. As in, you know when you walk sometimes there will be parts of the jeans thinning and such... THAT'S what I mean. I want to repair some jeans this way...

Recently, I have been in sewing / DIY mood a lot. But I didn't really get around to making much. I did watch some DIY tutorials on Youtube, though... So yeah. That tulle tutu is really easy to make, though (I GUESS XD!)... It is mostly a no-sew project, and actually quite popular. You will decide how much elastic band you will need for the project (Do you want your tutu to fit around your waist? Or around your hips?), cut that off (but with a sewing allowance!! I added about 1 centimeter for this project, so... I hope this will suffice!) after trying out whether you can still step in and out of it, then sew these ends together.

Next, you cut the tulle fabric in the colour(s) you want the tutu to feature into (I would say) about 20 centimeters worth of width. The length should be, however, roughly twice the length from the elastic band's final position (Once again: Hips or waist, you will decide!) to the final end of the tutu's length (This could be any length, really. I want mine to be rather short, but have no idea just yet how short in particular this will be :P!). You cut out as many pieces like this as you will need. Then you fold the pieces (or two or three together?) so that the ends meet each other, and tie these to the elastic band (You create a loop at the end opposite of the meeting point of the ends *gestures wildly*, then hold this loop next to the elastic band, and pull the other end through the loop over the elastic... ^_^).

So, that is the plan right now... I have cut off the elastic band as I said already, and I bought yarn & needles. Now on to sewing the ends together. I will have 0.5 centimeters sewing allowance at both ends (Which may be a bit too small / thin, but I will try nevertheless.). This is my first "real" sewing project, and to be frank, I am a bit scared it might go wrong. I know some tricks now as to threading a needle & tying a knot for the end of the thread, too, though, so that's great.

Let's hope for the best, shall we? And with this more-or-less understandable, written tutorial, I am leaving you today. I hope you all are in a good mood. ^o^