Completed Projects - Floofy pink dress (part 2)

Once I finished the main overdress, it was time to tackle the part of the dress I was dreading - the ruffle/ruched strip combo that would make up the hem.

Making the main dress hadn't been too bad (even though I did have to do it twice!) - all the seams were pressed flat and finished with a simple turn-and-stitch treatment from the waist down.   I chose this because the over skirt was open to reveal the ruffled under-layer and I wanted to avoid the chance of any unfinished seams being visible.

Turned-and-stitched skirt seam

For the bodice of the lining I ended up using the so-called 'quick lining technique' from Threads Magazine, which created a nice finish for the neckline.  For the skirt (which would be the base for the ruffles), I made a simple, French-seamed gored skirt.  To save fabric, bulk and weight, only the front half would have ruffles, so I folded the underskirt in half and marked the lines.

The underskirt, folded in half, marked and ready for ruffles

To make the ruffles, I cut out strips of fabric (10" wide for the blue underskirt layer, about 8" wide for the hem on the main dress) and seamed them together into a monstrously huge strip.  I finished each seam with turn-and-stitch to minimize bulk and finished the top and bottom edges with this thin knife-edge hem technique from Pattern Review.  I then cut the blue strip to the lengths I needed for each layer.  This wasn't the quickest process, but it ended up looking great so it was definitely worth the work.

Ruffles of doom - the first batch

The ruched strip, which would be sewn down the centre of the seam between the over skirt hem and the ruffle, was made by cutting out several 2.5" wide strips (to get a finished width of 1", I doubled that and added 1/2" for 1/4" seam allowances). I seamed them together and folded the resulting uber-strip in half lengthwise, right sides together, to get one extremely long tube. I completed it by sewing the tube along the lengthwise seam, turning it right side out and pressing it flat.

To attach the ruffle, I started off by dividing both the skirt hem and the ruffle into eight parts and marking each division with a large safety pin. I then matched up each division in both parts, pinned them together and pulled the gathering threads on the ruffle until it was the same length as the skirt. I was aware of this 'divide and conquer' method of gathering, but I usually took a more trial and error approach. After finally trying this method, I'm definitely sold on it - though it initially felt like it would take a while to mark the divisions of each piece, it saved tons of time in the end.

After that it was just a matter of attaching the ruffle to the skirt. I did the same 'divide and conquer' method for the ruched strip and attached it over the hem. At this point I had to go VERY slowly since I was sewing through so many layers!

Sewing on the ruched strip. Pictured is one of the three 

needles that gave their lives to complete this thing

After that I gathered and sewed each ruffle to the underskirt base (which went much faster, thank goodness!), then it was just a matter of seaming the bodice and doing some final finishing. There was a bit of last minute sewing of the sleeve elastic (of all times to misplace every bodkin I own!), but in the end I'm happy to say that it all came together and my friend loved the end result!

 

Overall, it was definitely a challenging project that taught me a lot (including how to bounce back from a serious screw-up). It was really rewarding and I couldn't be happier with the end result.