Welcome to Part 4 in our series on Tacking Your Tutu.
- In Part 1, we talked about preparing your tutu for tacking.
- In Part 2, we introduced our favorite time-saving tool, the “Tagging Gun”. We explained the tools, where to find them, and how to get them ready.
- In Part 3, we took you you step by step through one way of tacking a classical or bell tutu using a tagging gun.
In this post, we want to talk a bit about the hoop layer. What is hooping? Where do I find hooping? How do I hoop my tutu?
What is Hooping?
“Hooping” is a stiff wire or plastic inserted into one of the layers of your tutu. Hooping your tutu helps to keep the classical tutu flat and stiff. This gets you the flat, “pancake” look and aids in keeping your tutus’ shape even with heavy embellishment or after years of wear.
(If you need a review on the different tutu styles, you can take a look on our “History of the Tutu” under the “Tutu Styles” section.)
Where Can I Get the Supplies?
Hoop wire can be found from corset-making suppliers such as Richard the Thread (California, USA) or Farthingales (Ontario, Canada). The hoop wire that we prefer is made of steel and is actually two metal wires covered with either plastic or fabric. This tutorial shows the plastic coated type.
Preparing the Hoop Wire
For most classical tutu skirts, we split our wire into two strips. Here is what the wire looks like when it is intact:
Plastic Covered Hoop Wire
Here is how we split it:
Splitting Hoop Wire
Cut a length of hoop wire long enough to fit into your tutus’ hoop casing plus at least 8 inches. If you are working with a white tutu, you are done. Skip ahead to “Inserting Your Hoop Wire”.
Hiding Your Hoop Wire
When working on a colored tutu, our favorite method of hiding the hoop wire is to cover it with a satin ribbon. This is much less messy and less toxic than painting the wire casing. In addition, the satin helps the hoop to slide easily through your tutus’ hoop casing. We use a one inch wide ribbon to cover our split hoop wire. Fold the ribbon inf half and stitch close to the edge:
Preparing the Ribbon Casing
Insert your hoop wire into the ribbon casing:
Inserting Wire Into Casing
Inserting Your Hoop Wire
You are now ready to insert your hoop wire into your tutus’ hoop casing.
- Insert wire into the casing on your tutu.
- Carefully pull out your ruffle so that it is straight and even. (Strait out like the spokes of a wheel.)
- Tack into place.
This black and white example shows clearly the hoop inserted into the casing and tacked to the lower (black) layers. Note how the ruffle just under the hoop layer extends past the hooping and help hides it.
Hooping Inserted
We secure our hoop wire by overlapping at least 8 inches in the back and securing with clear packing tape. Tape the center of the overlapped section and over each end. You can tape right on top of the ribbon or, for a nicer finish, you can tape the wire and pull the ribbon over the taped portion to hide the tape.
We hope you are enjoying our tutu tips! Keep watching for more.
