Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Pink ruffles

Since I have been told that some of you indeed wants to see 6 meters of pink ruffles, so there you go :-) :

I was also asked how I made them...
No pictures of the making, but: I measured and drew up 8 of 12 cm wide stropes across the fabric. (Remember, that the warp thread usually stronger than the weft thread, so if you are cutting straight ruffles, cut them-if possible) across the grainline). I cut them with my scallope-cutting scissors. They are much like the zig-zag scissors most crafters are familiar with, but the scallops it cuts are ointing to one side, so those lines had to be cut twice. I mean if I wanted to be the two sides simmetric. 
Then sewed the pieces together at their shorter ends, so I got an about 10-11 cm wide, 12 meters long strip.
Changed the bobbin in my sewing machine to a fresh one (nothing like running out of the bobbin-thread at the middle of a stitchline, you are planning to pull to ruffle up something).
Turned the machine to its longest stitch, and loosened the bobbin-thread a little (it does not really matter, if you are loosening the needle-thread or the bobbin-thread, it is just easier to pull the one that was thighter).
Run two stitchline in the middle of the ruffle, approximately 0,5 cm apart (for me that is the width of the machine-s foot - I am sewing with an old industrial straight-stitch machine). The bobbin had about 10 cms of thread after I finished :-) Yeah, I won the bobbinthread-chicken game!!!)
I treated the two line as one, I held the two bobbin thread together while pulling.
Then I pulled the thread that was left thighter in the sewing machine (in my case it was the bobbin-thread). 
I did not try to ruffle up all of it at once, but did it in 150 cm pieces, To do that, in the places the ruffles were sewin together, I pushed a thicker knitting needle under the stitch and carefully pulled the loop up until I could grab it with my fingers. I pulled each piece from both ends, while I kept checking its length. I kept pulling and pushing the ruffles until the 150 cm piece became about 75 cm and the ruffles were more or less even, then did the next piece. The threads that were pulled out were tied together very carefully. 

After that, I left my hadns to rest for a day and then I pinned the ruffles on. 
They were sewn on by hands, but that is another story.
 

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