Lemon Tee & a Tutu

I got an email from my daughters school about a month before school was over saying that she needed a grey tutu and a grey shirt for the school’s end-of-year recital. (I guessed she was going to be an elephant, and I was correct.)

The parents in the class sent messages that it was actually pretty impossible to find a grey tutu at the stores in the area, and that they were all going to order from a shop on Amazon with pretty terrible reviews. So I decided it couldn’t really be that hard to make and that, surely, I could find grey tulle at the fabric stores.

The day I went to the fabric store near me, they were closed the whole week for the holiday, and the day they reopened was the same day as the deadline that the clothes needed to be at the school. So, I went a little further West to a different store and prayed they had grey tulle.

The best they had was this greyish blue color, but I didn’t think it would matter all that much.

I had browsed YouTube for tulle skirt tutorials, but I was dreading having to cut separate squares or circles or just making it more complicated than it needed to be. Then I did a search on Google instead and found a basic tutu tutorial from Rachael Rabbit that was much more up my alley.

Her tutorial called for 10 yards…I had 3 meters. So, we just did the best with what we had. The tutorial is pretty straight forward. The tulle I bought was already folded in half, so it was easy to just fold in half one more time and stitch a ~1″ channel on the folded edge for the elastic.

It mentioned in the post that using a walking foot was a good idea so that the tulle didn’t slide around. I usually try to avoid my walking foot because it makes a clicking noise that drives me crazy, but I could handle it for one short project. It did help!

What I didn’t think through was that the tulle I bought was 3 meters wide, so in hindsight, I could have fold it in half again because it went to the floor on my daughter and I had to cut off quite a bit (*cringe*). We learned our lesson for next time. Luckily, she didn’t care and she wore it the rest of the day (pictured above watching TV).

It might seem strange, but I’ve never made a t-shirt for my kids. Buying them is usually much cheaper and less effort. I have a super cool sewing friend, Susana, who is also a pattern designer for children and women and lives here in Lisbon. Her company is Suco by Susana, and she recommended the Lemon Tee for my daughters’ shirt.

The pattern is unisex (I could use it for my son as well), and the sizes are from 12 months to 14 years. I measured my daughter, and she was a size 6. So that’s the size that I made, and it fits her perfectly! Susana always has very detailed instructions and photos. She even has a very nice neckband finishing, but I skipped over it since I wasn’t sure how much use this t-shirt was going to get.

I did, by some miracle, find a mystery knit that a company sent me as a freebie with one of my orders, so that’s what I used. I even had enough to make some matching shorts! For the shorts, I used the free pajama pants pattern by Life Sew Savory, and even though it’s for wovens, it works fine for knits too.

I was happy when I was finally finished, and she loved all of it! I’m calling it a success. She has since had her end-of-year recital, and it was very cute. Her elephant costume was adorable.

Thank you for reading and happy sewing! xoxo

Sharing Joy:
We finally finished the stressful task of booking where we’re going to stay when we go to Denmark next month. We’re very excited to see more of Europe and the kids are especially excited about Legoland.

If you have any Copenhagen recs, I’d love to know! Do you have any travels coming up that you’re looking forward to?