So my Bestest had an interview today and she wanted something professional and cute to wear. She brain stormed some and decided... RUFFLES!!! Thus the ruffle top was born!!!
Didn't use a pattern just went off her measurements and what she had in her head. Cap sleeves to cover her tats and it V's just just before the cleavage area so exposure for the goodies... WWOOOOOO!! C&C are welcome. I would really like to know how to bigger ruffles better.
Thanks for looking! This is the only pic I have for the moment. I'll get more when she gets out of her interview.
TUTORIAL The pic is a thumbnail I think you should be able to click it and enlarge it some.
Ok, so I apologize for its extreme lateness. I started going back to school again (after I had to withdraw once). There’s a long story about this. But it’s not about crafts so I will not bore you with my hatred of school bureaucracy.
This is my first tute, I’m sorry there aren’t any pics I’ll try a little paint and see what happens with that lol.
Materials:Fabric ( I used about 3-4 yards for her and had some left over. About 2 for the shirt and about 1 or so for the ruffles)
ScissorsSewing Machine
Ruffler Foot (optional)
Pins
T-Shirt or T-shirt Pattern
Thread
Iron
PATIENCE!!Step 1 - So I am terrible at pattern drafting… I do a lot of unnecessary measurements, but that is how I made this shirt for her. If you know how to draft a pattern or already have a t shirt that fits just right use that instead. I won’t go into detail about my terrible pattern, but if you have questions feel free to ask me. I basically drafted a half of a paper t-shirt thing…
Step 2 - You want your fabric folded in half, now take you t shirt and fold that in half too (this should cut the shirt in half from collar to you bottom band if that makes any sense). And place that on your fabric so that the folded fabric and folded shirt line up.
Step 3 - Cut out two and DON’T FORGET SEAM ALLOWANCE. Of your pattern one will be the back and one will be your front. What we did for her shirt is I sewed the two pattern pieces together (sides and shoulders) and had her play live dress form. Once she had it on I took some chalk and we decided how low she wanted the V in the front and what didn’t fit properly (i.e. the shoulders being to long or the arm pits being too low) Make your adjustments and fix them as you see fit for you.
Step 4 – For the sleeves we made cap sleeves, which are basically half a sleeve that flairs slightly….. I don’t know the measurement for it. What we did is we folded her shirt arm hole in half (shoulder touching bottom of arm pit…. Like a sandwich) and traced it, this became the top of our cap sleeve. From there we flared it a little and measured how many inches down her arm she wanted it to go. DON’T FORGET SEAM ALLOWANCE! Then we cut them (2 of them! Lol, don’t forget that, we almost did!) and sewed them on.
Step 5 – Next we finished up by hemming the bottom of the sleeves and shirt as well as the neck lines.
Step 6 – Ruffles….. *sigh*. When I did this shirt I did not have a ruffler foot for my machine. So I will tell you how to do it without one, if you have one… GREAT! You’re ahead of the game!!
To make ruffles, you will need to decided how you want them to look first off. We decided small ruffles around the neck and large ones flowing down. For the neck, they were about an inch wide. This means we cut the fabric 2 inches wide and double the length of the neck line. We ended up doing one side at a time. You cut the fabric the length and width (everything is doubles here for ruffles). We folded the fabric in half (making it look like 1 inch again) and sewed to fabric together, thus forming a tube.
Take your tube and turn it inside out, leaving the stitches inside the tube and a clean edge on the outside. Sew the two ends closed tucking in the end fabric to give you a clean edge. Now you will need to iron these flat. Once ironed, pin on end to the shirt where the ruffles will start and then start to make little pleats every inch or so and pinning them in place so that they do not come undone. Now take and sew them on along the neck line.
For the larger ruffles we make larger tubes and repeated the process up above, except we hand sewed these on so that we could make them twist and turn and dangle more controllably.
This should end the Interview Ruffle Shirt tute. Of I was unclear about anything please let me know. This is the first time I have made a tute or explained how to make anything to someone (none of my friends sew). Thanks for your patience and I hope this helps.
