I thought having a bunch of cloth flowers would be a cute accent to the tricycle I’ve been working on. Only, there was no way I was going to hand sew a bunch of flowers. A friend of pinned a tutorial for easy ruffles with a sewing machine. I gave it a shot and it didn’t work for me, at all. But the thought of playing with the tension got me thinking and I tried this…..
My machine’s tension wasn’t strong enough, so I just held the thread while I sewed (I’ll post a quick step by step below) and it worked PERFECTLY!!
I was able to make a TON of flowers in less than 30 minutes!!
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I don’t plan on doing too many tutorials here. I’m not very good at them and some of my readers have made sure I understand that hahaha!! *blush* I GET IT, ladies!! I’m am not a teacher…I’m a Macro rather than micro thinker, which appereantly doesn’t go well with giving instructions. BUT….for those of you who need little instruction and can fill in the blanks that I’ll inevitably leave out…here’s how I did it!!!
Obviously, if you leave the strip unfolded it’ll give you a different sort of ruffle. The one above is folded in 1/2 with a 1/4 inch seam. I sewed about 1/4 of an inch on some of my unfolded ruffle strips and right down the center of the strip for others. I knew in advance that I’d be using the ruffles for flowers, so I wanted variety.
As you’re sewing ad a little tension to the top thread (yes you’ll have to sew one handed) and you’ll see the fabric ruffling right up!!
BAM….ruffles!!!
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