Making ruffles is easy, and there are a few ways to go about it. Let me show you how!
It’s a good idea to make samples with the fabric you intend to use. You can change the look of the ruffles by using more or less fabric.
Here are mock-ups using a medium weight satin (blue), a heavier poplin (light pink), and a very light weight chiffon (fuchsia). They’re all finished to 4″ of ruffle, but they look different because I used different amounts of fabric for each row. The top row I used 6”, or one and a half times the finished length. The middle row is 8”, or twice the finished length. And the bottom row is 12”, or three times the finished length. There’s a big difference between all of these, and which variation you choose is purely aesthetic (or, you know, limited to the amount of fabric you have!).
To make these ruffles I used a long stitch length and high thread tension. I sewed over the ruffle edge without backtacking and I left long thread tails.
Then I pulled the tail of the bobbin thread to adjust the gathers down to the size I wanted. I find the bobbin thread is usually easier to pull than the needle thread when I’m gathering.
When you sew it to whatever it’s attaching to, I recommend to sew with the gathers on top so you can keep an eye on them and adjust them easily as you go.
Another way to make the ruffles is using this torture device looking attachment for your home machine.
Take off the regular presser foot attachment (not just the foot).
Put the crescent wrench looking part around the screw for the needle, and the square part gets wrapped around the shaft for the foot and screwed into place.
Keep it on the “1” setting, and use this screw to adjust the depth of the ruffles.
Weave your fabric through the guides and sew away.
The attachment makes consistent, even gathers in your fabric. It sounds terrible and looks like it’s eating your fabric, but it does make nice, clean gathers. Well, they’re more like little tucks.
On the right are the samples from the ruffle foot attachment. They don’t look too unlike the third mock-up of the manually gathered ruffles. But again, that fullness can be adjusted with the screw on the ruffle foot attachment.
