After a Twitter chat where Lucy aka @dearbeautiful shared her tutu tutorial I was inspired to have a go and make my own tutu for the upcoming Red Nose Day Danceathon. I quickly found what I needed online and set about ordering them, they arrived and then they sat there while I found the time to actually make my tutu. In between time I mentioned to my mum about the tutu and she reminded me of the turquoise blue satin tutus she'd made for my whole dance class back in the 1970s and offered to make me one for Sunday - I don't think she meant the same though. Well, I found a picture of a picture of them (so excuse the quality) and that's a lot of tutus to make. Clearly mum had forgotten just how much "fun" she'd had making those thirteen tutus...

Kudos to anyone who can work out which one's me...

So with the Danceathon looming - it's this Sunday, eek! - I thought I'd better get on with it and actually make myself a tutu. Or at least give myself enough time to shop for a replacement if I needed too. So yesterday I sat myself down and re-read the tutorial, unpacked the tulle and vowed to make myself something to wear. It's not as dramatic as that of course as I'll be wearing my gym kit, so the tutu is just an embellishment.

And until that Twitter chat I didn't know that Tulle came on rolls, or was soft. Clearly the scratchy net from the 1970s was etched on my mind. Anyway I started off with a 25 yard reel of Red and Cerise Tulle and some black elastic to use as the waistband.

I'd been contemplating what I could use to keep the elastic taut and then it came to me - I tied a waist-sized length over the door handles of my conservatory. It did make getting into the conservatory slightly tricky, but that was enough to spur me on to complete it in one go. I cut lengths of Tulle about 65cm and then started to knot them onto the elastic. I started with red and added occasional bursts of the pink.

It grew quite quickly and I was pleased with how it was looking. I'd also bought some black and silver Tulle as a standby in case I used more than I expected and ran out as I didn't think a "bald" tutu would be a good look. Part-way through I thought I might be getting close to the wire, so I shuffled the red and cerise strands along to add silver "highlights" every five or six strands, which I think gives it some extra depth.

The finished tutu is still quite red and pink! ...And I suspect my face might be after six hours of dancing too. There was just one thing left to do, and that was try it on. I was surprised at how full it was, and in fact how tutu-like. Clearly it didn't look as cute on me as on Lucy's beautiful girl but it will do me well for the Danceathon. If you want to dance-along turn on the Red Button and see how it's going, the dancing starts at midday. Or perhaps you'll join us and raise money either by #HonkfromHome or #DanceYourYears

And it's for a good cause too. Last week Helen over at MummyToTheMax hosted a post for me where I explained why I joined Team Honk this year. Even my Red Nose wanted to get into the act with the tutu - and who was I to say no?!

And in case the last few shots have blown your capacity for red and pink, here's a more calming black and white shot!

Sponsorship update

I've had great support with sponsorship from friends, family, blog readers and from BetFair for which I'm very grateful - thank you. It's not too late to sponsor me though, and even though I've reached my target - I'm actually way over it - you can still sponsor me. So if you're likely to donate to Comic Relief this year, please do it using my sponsorship page and help boost the Team Honk total.

And in that first photo, I'm right in the middle of the back row!