• Articles
• Design
  
• Color
• Wardrobe
• Stash
• Contact

Essentials:

This is where we will be putting the bits that will raise your sewing off the pattern and into the realm of designer. Does this mean that you don't need that design degree? No, what it does mean is that we will be giving you tools to make that vision in your head a reality. Remember us when you get on Project Runway!


Draft a Ruffle

Okay, so you’re not fancy, or you never really dress up, or ruffles just aren’t “You.” You may still need to add a ruffle to a daughter’s dress or maybe you win the award for best attendance at the PTA. Whatever, learning how to make a ruffle is really easy and will whet your appetite for making other changes to your patterns.

Here’s how to do it:

Measure the hem, neckline edge, seam, wherever you want to add the ruffle.

 

Now take that measurement and draw it out on a piece of paper, not as a straight line but a curve. You want it to be something like the “golden mean” stuff you learned about way back in geometry (bet you never thought you’d use that again!) the curve shouldn’t be too tight or too loose.

 

















Now draw a matching curve the width you want to ruffle to be- be sure to include seam and hem allowances! Make this curve just a bit longer than the first one on the ends so that you can swing the short ends of the ruffle out at an angle.



Now cut out your test ruffle pattern, if you’ve used newspaper (highly recommended), when you give a little tug on the top of the curve to straighten it out you can see that the rest of it ruffles.

 

Now imagine that it is fabric and what you get is bias. When you are happy with the swing of the ruffle you can transfer it to fabric but you may want to notch where it crosses seam lines etc. on the top of the ruffle and by all means hem the ruffle before adding it to the garment. Working with a slippery bias piece after it is joined to a garment would give a sailor new vocabulary!

Now if you can do that you can make a pencil skirt swish, dress up a wrap top to make instant evening wear, get creative and add them to the side seams of a skirt, add narrow ones to pintucks on a shirt front and work your disco 70’s look. If you’re adding them in a knit you don’t even need to hem them! In a woven you can leave them raw too for a bit of a deconstructed “Project Alabama” feel.

 

That's it, see told you it was easy!