The need for tutus.
Weird? Yes, but I will try to excuse myself by saying that it's Halloween time and I have an abiding loathing of the pre-made, nylon and foam costumes sold in the stores. I love to make costumes, but am basically broke and lazy. And as we all know, Broke and Lazy are the Mothers of Invention. A dash of perfectionism doesn't hurt either. I refuse to settle for "good enough." I've been told this is a terrible, horrible, self-destructive trait, and I should ditch it. True, perfectionism has bitten me a great deal in the past. Causing everything from procrastination to recriminations. Call me silly, but if I want to make a robot costume for Halloween, I want it to look like this:
Adorable! Looks like there's even a little ice dispenser in there.
Rather than this:
Photos courtesy of my good friend, Google Image Search.
No libel intended.
Anyway, back to tutus.
We decided that Maggie should be a cute little witch this year, and what's a cute little witch without a tutu? So I did what every logical, crafty, 21st century mom does; I looked online for a tutorial. There were thousands! I picked roughly one thousand to look at. Of those, 999 told me how to tie strips of tulle around an elastic band (an awesome one is here) and one told me how to sew a tutu on a sewing machine. Sewing machine? Hooray! It was exactly what I was looking for. It was a video tutorial, and was made by a very talented lady. (Watch it here. I'm all about the linkbacks.)
....but wait, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. It needed a few modifications.
I should mention here that this is what I do. I used to follow every set of directions, every recipe, every tutorial to a T. I would even run out to buy ingredients or supplies that I didn't have. Then came the advent of Broke and Lazy, so I found it necessary to improvise (see above.) Improvisation, I found, worked swimmingly! Okay, not in every case, but in many. I've been winging it ever since.
So this tutu.
I didn't have a ribbon, just elastic. That was improvisation number one. After I sewed several layers onto the elastic, I found it getting significantly less stretchy than it was. I found this to be a gross misrepresentation of the product, (it is called elastic, after all, so has no right to become unelastic) but I soldiered through, sometimes doing the unthinkable and sewing on two layers at a time, rather than one, as instructed. I felt wicked and daring doing this.
I should mention here that the author of the tutorial was not only using a different waistband material than I was, she was also some kind of tulle whisperer. For her, only one pin was needed per strip. She effortlessly fed lovely, even strips into her machine and out came fairy cotton candy dreams.
For me, working with tulle was like weaving live snakes.
No matter how I tried, the tulle would flip itself over the waistband, escape my fingers and fall to the floor where it promptly turned invisible until stepped on with bare feet, or curl itself under the wrong side of my work, causing me to stitch it, folded in half, to the outside of the waistband. This made me say bad words. Repeatedly.
Anyway, eventually, I met with success! Actually, less met with it than clobbered success over the head and dragged it back to the cave with me.
The little witch will not be sans-tutu tonight.
Photo courtesy of my phone, not Google Image Search.
Photo courtesy of my phone, not Google Image Search.
What is the point of all this? (Please note that I am asking this question of myself, not you. If you didn't see a point, I'm assuming you haven't read this far.) It's not entirely to brag that I made a tutu. In fact, I made two tutus, (which is really fun to type in text messages as leetspeak and confuse the heck out of people.) And now I want to make more tutus! Tons of tutus! A HUNDRED TUTUS! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (Sorry, got carried away there.... all better now)
No, the point of this is that I want to be able to show you how I make stuff. Not because I'm awesome at it, but for precisely the opposite reason. I'm not Martha Stewart, (although I want to be when I grow up. Who wouldn't? Martha Stewart is the domestic Chuck Norris.) I don't think Martha ever says bad words or snaps her ruffling threads or pokes herself with a needle. She measures the water for her Rice-a-Roni and uses Fabri-tac instead of Ultra Mega Gonzo Glue. I do all of the former and neither of the latter. And I suspect there are more people like me out there. Ordinary artisans who want to use what they have on hand rather than going on a search for the right kind of waistband ribbon at midnight on October 30th.
So this blog will be dedicated to tutorials. How I make do with what I have and fly by the seat of my pants when I don't have what someone else says I need. How many bad words I say and how many dance breaks I need to take. How to make Broke and Lazy into art.
And while I'm at it, I will learn to take pictures of my stuff as I go. Learn to let go of encouraging others to think of me as a magician who just pulls from the ether all kinds of neat things. Or everyday things that I don't feel like spending money on.
Although I'm not doing another tutu very soon as far as I know, (although both my grandsons want one now, so I'm toying with ideas of camo tutus and Buzz Lightyear tutus,) I'm planning to cover other things I'm passionate about, as well. Nail art on natural nails. Making my house prettier. Growing things to eat. Making jewelry. Going on picnics. Cooking gourmet food with mundane ingredients. Slow bicycling for transportation. A bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now.
Should be fun.
