Tutorial: Making Ruffles the Easy Way!

Today I’m going to show you the way I make ruffles…the easy way.  I learned this from my mother-in-law who has several sewing tricks up her sleeve.  She learned them from working in a sewing factory when she was in her teens.

You’ll need:  Fabric you want gathered, coordinating thread and bobbin
(I used black thread on yellow so you can see what I’m doing!)

Set your machine stitch width to a zigzag.  I like it to be a big one, but just make it a good size.  I do a regular stitch length, about a 3 on my machine.

Before you start sewing, go ahead and pull both the bobbin and the top thread out until it’s a little longer than the length of the material you are going to gather.  Then put the material under the presser foot and lay the thread you pulled out on top of the material as shown above.
We’ll sew a zigzag stitch on top of the thread you pulled out.

When you’re done, it should look like this! 

ONLY trim the threads that just sewed the zigzag.  Keep the threads that you pulled out of the machine before sewing long.  I’ve cut all the threads several times and had to start over!  bummer, so be careful when cutting threads!

Now take those tails and pull to gather, just like you do when you gather with the bobbin thread.  This way is easier, faster, and it gets a more uniform ruffle.  I’ve used this for LONG pieces of fabric, and short ones.  It works the same.

Now you’ve got a gathered piece for your project.  This works great on knits for t-shirt refashions, or cottons for gathers in bags or other projects!  Enjoy!