Ruffles

I've made a lot of ruffles lately.  80-odd at least.  So I thought I'd share some of the benefits of my experience with you, in case you ever found yourself needing to sew 80 ruffles.

Sewaholic has written a recent post on the usual method of gathering fabric, as often descibed in pattern sheets.  This is not my favourite method, because I have trouble gathering the fabric evenly.  Also, I used to get unwanted tucks, but this is because I didn't realise that you were supposed to sew between the 2 rows of basting stitches and not below them.  All those wasted years of frustrating gathering because I never learnt the technique properly. 

I was given ruffle-y ballet costumes to sew because the person who designed them decided that she did not have enough time to sew them!  When I started the gathering, I tried using the zig-zag over dental floss method, as posted here.  Only I used cheap cotton instead of dental floss because I had so many ruffles to do.  This was not working so well,  because the "dental floss" was not staying anchored, and I was pulling the gathering thread out too far and losing gathers.

So then I moved onto a modified zig-zag technique.  This was not the final method I used, but it is so interesting that I thought I would document the process here.

In the following photos, the upper thread is light blue and the bobbin thread is red. (A big thanks to my photographer.  This method takes 2 hands, so I had to enlist the services of my photographer, who interrupted his rugby viewing to take photos).

Hold the end of the upper thread and take a single stitch.  I use the hand wheel to take this stitch.

 Then use your other hand to grab the upper thread where it comes out of the needle.

 Pull both sides of the upper thread to bring the bobbin thread to the surface.

 With your left hand, hold the end of the bobbin thread and don't let it go.  Use your right hand to grab hold of the loop of bobbin thread that was brought to the surface.

 Pull this loop of bobbin thread out (don't let go of the end in your left hand).

 Keep pulling until the length of bobbin thread is at least as long as the final length of your ruffle, and then some.

 I push the upper thread back to the foot, just to keep it all tidy.

 Zig-zag over the loop of bobbin thread.

 Here you can see the blue threads zig-zagged over the red bobbin thread, behind the foot.

 You can either apply tension to the loop of bobbin thread, to gather as you go, or pull it tight afterwards to gather the fabric.

 Pretty tricky, hey?  But as I said, not the final method I went with.  The ruffles were taking me way too long.  I recently bought "industry clothing construction methods" by mary ruth shields.  I have only had it a few days, so it is too soon for me to review it, but I have read the chapter on skirts where it says only to use the basting / gathering method if you have a lot of time on your hands, as this method is too time consuming to be used anywhere but in a custum or couture setting.   Well, these ballet costumes are custom, but they are not couture, so I investigated the gathering feet described by Mary.

First I looked up my Elna manual.  Elna does make a gathering foot, so I went to see my local Elna man.  He could not help me out, so then I went to Spotlight (all the time wondering if I would be better off staying hojme and just getting on with the ruffles).  No gathering foot for Elna and none listed in their catalogue.  I was just about to leave when the ANGEL behind the counter pointed me in the direction of the generic sewing feet.  I have not tried generic feet on my machine before, but the Sewparts low-shank gathering foot only cost $3.99, so I thought it was worth a try. 

Check out my beautiful gathering.  The amount of gathering can be adjusted by altering the tension of the upper thread, the stitch length and the foot pressure.  My foot pressure is usually set at its maximum of 3.  I used my maximum stitch length of 4.  My upper thread tension varies from 0 - 9 and I set it about 6.5 to get the gathers below.  The fabric is a sheer nylon.  Apparently more gathering can be achieved by holding your fingers behine the foot so that the fabric does not pass through so quickly.  I did this, but I am not sure how much difference it made.  It took me a few goes, changing the settings,  to get the gathered strips to the length I wanted.  From then on, it was just a single row of stitching to produce beautiful, even ruffles.

I

I was so excited, I finished off the ballet ruffles and then began gathering everything in sight.  Some samples are shown below.  The fabric for these samples were harvested from the floor around my sewing machine, so you can just imagine what my sewing room looks like (and after a week of focussing on ballet costumes, the rest of the house does not look too much different to my sewing room)! The gathering foot seems to work best on lightweight fabrics.  From the left, there is a synthetic georgette, a lightweight cotton, a quilting cotton, a bias strip of Liberty fabric, a synthetic organza and a lightweight stretch denim.

A heavy-weight twill cotton did not gather very well.  I could not get any knit fabrics to gather at all.  The knits just would not progress under the foot.  Initially I was disappointed by this, but then Suzannah did a post on gathering knit trims.  The following sample was made using the regular sewing foot, a stitch length of 4 and an upper thread tension of 9.

After all the ruffles, I used the gathering foot to gather the tops of 14 pairs of green organza harem pants, that were then attached to a lycra waistband.  For a one-off garment, the basting / gathering method would most likely still be my method of choice, as it takes a bit of fiddling to get the right amount of gather with the gathering foot, but when sewing multiples, I am definitely a fan of the gathering foot.  I forgot to picture of harem pants before I gave them all to the studio.

I hope that ruffly, gathered things stay in fashion for a while longer, now that I am so proficient at gathering.


Here is a photo of the leggings for the ballet costume.  For my records, I used Jalie 2920, shortening the legs to below the knee.  The lycra had only 50% stretch, so I went up 2 sizes.  I didn't use the waist elastic measurements recommended by Jalie; instead, I measured the girls' waists and cut the elastic 3 cm shorter than this.

Narrow Bindings

I have been toiling away at my machine, sewing up ballet costumes for a local concert.  At the moment I am working on 14 caterpillar costumes.  Whilst the sewing itself gets tedious, I enjoy the process of working out my patterns and construction methods for maximum efficiency and minimum number of fittings.

These caterpillars are all wearing green satin bolero vests.  The fabric is heavyweight and frays terribly.  The boeros are for 6 yo girls.  This is the neatest method I came up with to bind the edges of the boleros, which have some rather tight corners.

Step 1  - Keep the bias binding folded.  Lay the binding with the folds facing upward on the right side of the bolero, matching the raw edge of the bolero with one folded edge of the binding.  Stitch down the centre of the binding.

Step 2 - Trim away the seam allowances (my seam allowances were 6 mm).  It is okay to trim off some of the binding.

Step 3 - Fold the binding, and about 1 mm of bolero fabric to the inside of the bolero and stitch along the folded edge of the binding.

This is what it looks like from the inside.

This is how it looks on the outside.

 This is the completed bolero.  Not perfect, but as neat as I can get it.
  

Tracy Reese Vogue

I am writing today's post using a borrowed monitor because my monitor has broken.  This borrowed monitor has funny dimensions, distorting everything to be short and dumpy, but I am posting anyway, because I can't see myself getting a new monitor in the near future.  I have just guessed at which photos might be most flattering and not cropped them at all.  I probably won't leave too many comments on other blogs until I get a new monitor, because I'm sure you don't won't me to say, "Gee, that outfit that you have slaved over really makes you look short and dumpy!  On the other hand, it is probably a great time for me to order patterns, because I can see what they would look like on shorter, wider people than Vogue models.  Anyway, enough guff, on with the pattern review.

Pattern

Tracy Reese Vogue 1190.  

Fabric

A silk twill from EmmaOneSock.  I got it at a bargain price because it was cut at the wrong length for another order.  Happy days.

Fitting

Dresses are my nemesis, and this one was no exception.  I did make a muslin.  There was lots to alter.  

Surprisingly, I had to redraft the back straps, to get the back and shoulder to sit right.  I usually do make significant shoulder alterations, so it is probably a fit issue more than a drafting issue.  

In waisted dresses, I am never quite sure where to put the waist.  I have a high waist, so putting the waist at my natural waist can emphasize this flaw in proportions.  For this dress, putting a contrast waist below my natural waist made me look wider than I am.  I made the muslin using my natural waist, but decided to cut the dress with a longer bodice.  I really should have muslined a longer bodice.  

I have uneven hips (well, who doesn't after lugging 3 children about), but I have never bothered to correct for this before.  I made the dress and then when I looked in the mirror, all the arrows on the fabric seemed to be pointing at the wider hip, so I let the front and side seams out on one side.

Erica B has made this dress.  She seemed to have a far easier time of it than me (sigh).  Anyway, if you look at her entry you can see a photo of this dress being sold at Nordstroms.  It looks the same as the Vogue pattern cover, except that the proportions are different.  I only notice, because of my many hours trying to decide where to put the waist.  In the Nordstrom version, the skirt : bodice length shows a much longer skirt than even Erica's version, and Erica has added 3" length to hers.  I presume that the Nordstrom version is RTW and not customised to the model.  So then I wondered if they have doctored the photo to make the model taller and thinner, more like fashion illustrations.   Do you think they really would have done this?  I hope not, because it is hard enough buying online without altered photos.  I guess the other possibility is that the Vogue dress is not the same dress as the one photographed.

Cutting

I made a lot of cutting mistakes, which is unusual for me, as I enjoy the cutting stage of a project.  A bit of clear thinking during the cut saves a whole lot of angst later on.  This time around, I had to go through the angst.  

Vogue bodices are usually about 3.5 cm too long for me.  I decided to cut the bodice at the Vogue length.  I had meant to lengthen the skirt 3.5 cm in case I changed my mind and used a shorter bodice.  I forgot to lengthen the skirt and then I ended up using a shorter bodice, leaving the skirt short.  

I usually cut an 8 across the chest and a 12 for the rest of the bodice.  I cut the top ruffle in an 8 and later realised that I needed the 12 for length, just the 8 for width.  This meant that the top ruffle was not long enough to cover the next ruffle down so had to be removed and re-sewn. 

In the muslin, I pinched out a tuck in the neckline.  When I tried the bodice on during sewing, it didn't seem to fit right, so I assumed that I had forgotten to make the tuck during cutting.  So then I overlapped the bottom of the front bodice, and when I shortened the bodice by 2 cm I cut the extra off.  Only, after I attached the waistband, the front skirt was hiking up.  So I think perhaps I did make the tuck, only now I had essentially made 2 tucks.  I did my best to mitigate this by reducing the seam allowance in the front when attaching the waist band.

Sewing

This pattern requires quite a bit of care during sewing.  The ruffles all have narrow hem edges, which are then folded in so that you can't see the hemmed edges.  This seemed a lot of bother, and afterwards I thought it would probably have been easier to fold the ruffles right sides together and sewn down the sides, before turning out a pocket.  I don't think that this would have detracted from the design.

I didn't sew the bust dart on the outside.  There were no other exposed details on this dress, so I thought it would look like a mistake, if you could actually see it in this fabric anyway.

The waistband is a separate piece, sewn into the dress, with a waistband facing on the inside.  This means at the zip there are 5 layers of fabric (2 waistbands, I dress, 2 seam allowances) plus 2 interfacing layers to sew through.  I would recommend a good quality zip and to zip slowly, so that you don't break the zip once it is in.  For the waistband I used a polyester crepe, which was a bit spongy, so perhaps you would not have this problem in a lighter fabric.

The shoulder seams are sewn in a french seam.  With the ruffle and the bias binding on one side and the back strap and a facing on the other front edge, I found it difficult to sew this neatly.

The skirt seams are all sewn as french seams.  I would recommend practising your french seams before sewing this dress, to ensure the seam allowances are accurate.  A small error in the width of a french seam, multiplied by the 7 skirt seams, can easily lead to a few cm of error in width.

Take care gathering and positioning the back strap.  The outside edge of the back strap is on a diagonal, so the length of the strap will be wrong if the gathers slip out and the edge of the back strap is in the wrong place.

I wore this dress out the other night.  I did receive lots of compliments, even from strangers.  The photo above was the best we got on the night.  The benefit of this was that my photoshoot today took me to the far reaches of my back garden, where I have not been for a while, and I discovered that these gorgeous gingers have flowered after the recent rains.

 I have been doing other bits of sewing lately, probably not really worthy of their own post, but I will show you one more photo.  I was asked to sew dress-ups for my son's class, as in a tussle of resources they lost their collection.  This is a love job, so I have just been sewing quick pieces out of remnants.  This one is my favourite...a knight's costume.  My model is pretending to wield a sword.

Vogue 8527 Version 5!

This is my 5th time making Vogue 8527, but the first time that I have sewn view E.


I was making this the afternoon before my school reunion, in amongst a gazillion other goings on, so took a few short cuts.  For the other versions of this bag I used a heavyweight sew-in interfacing, but for this one I used a medium weight fusible interfacing.  Big mistake, as the bag is not stiff enough to clutch easily.  Now I have a piece of cardboard taking up room inside the bag :(.

I used a thick cotton for the main fabric of the bag and a satin for the bow.  I would recommend using a much stiffer fabric for the bow, such as duponi or taffeta, as my bow droops and does not hold its shape well.

Still, another cute clutch to add to my growing collection. 

Summer Slip

I bought the Vogue DKNY 1160 dress pattern just for the slip.  I have no intention of ever making the dress.  This slip pattern has separate bust cups, which makes it a little different to my other slip patterns.  It also has a fuller skirt than most slips, which is okay for a nightie.

Summer nighties would be some of my most successful sewing projects, if you use "number of times worn" as a measure.  I last sewed a couple maybe 8 or 9 years ago, and they have ripped and worn a bit now.

The lovely thing about this pattern is that it required no fitting changes ... no shoulders to adjust, no chest area to adjust, full skirt and bias cut to accomodate waist and hip size changes.  Just a simple little whip-it-up project to calm me after a dress project that I has been causing me angst lately.

Now, I wouldn't normally include photos of me in my sleepwear, but this pattern got a poor review over at PR, so I wanted to show a successful version.  I'm not sure why mine was more successful that Ariana's ... perhaps my cotton is easier to sew and not as drapy as her silk.  The neckline edges are sewn with a narrow hem rather than finished with bias strips, but this would be easy to change if you preferred a bias binding finish.  I made the straps wider than the pattern suggested.