Guest Project — Striped Bias-Cut Ruffle Dress Tutorial

are you an anti-pattern, mentally-visualizing, needle-busting, trial-and-error, dresser-maker dummy kind of fashionista?

once i had one section of the front cut, i had to line up the stripes to cut the other front panel. luckily, i could see thru the material to make sure that the lines were going in the exact same direction exactly overtop of each other. right sides of fabric face one another. i sewed the seams in a straight stitch.

i did the same for the back panels, cutting just a little bit higher around the neckline. i sewed all my panels together with a straight stitch…easiest to fix mistakes with…

i used my dressmakers dummy, obviously measured to ME, and adjusted the shoulders and took in however much i wanted at the sides so that it wouldnt be baggy or anything around the armpits. (yikes)

once i figured out the right sizing i re-sewed the side seams in a serger-like stitch to reinforce.

then it was business time for the ruffles. this was my VERY first attempt at ruffling, and i really didnt do awesome, but i will tell you what i would do differently next time.

first of all, i cut a strip twice as long as the front side of the neckline using both a white and red stripe on the strip. i hemmed it on both sides.

then i adjusted my tension to as loose as the sewing machine allowed.

i kept it on a straight stitch at the longest length it would allow.

i sewed two parallel straight stitches the entire length of the ruffle strip. in the future, i would not do these lines in the centre of the strip, seeing as when it is sewed onto your garment, you can see the backside of the material and the exposed stitching. IN MY MIND, i mean, the pattern said…there would be a red ruffle and a white ruffle on top of each other, but the pattern was WRONG!

so next time, if i wanted both colors of ruffles, i would just cut two strips and ruffle separately, sewing close to the top hem. once the were ruffled, they could be sewn onto the garment in layers.

once the parallel lines were sewn, i held the two bottom threads (from the bobbin) and gently pulled and puckered the strip…it was really easy!

i then sewed the ruffle onto the front side of the neckline and was able to wear the dress the next day on my spirit ridge vacation!

time spent: 2.5 hours (it SHOULDN’T have taken that long!)