Front ruffle

This is a shot of the front ruffle on the dress. I kept trying to play with the photo so you could see the ruffle better with not much success. After putting it aside and then looking at it last night, the ruffle looks better than I thought it did on Sunday.

Gwen asked if the ruffle was single or double fabric. I liked how she described in her comment to Sunday's post how she did a ruffle on her blouse. Gwen be sure to post that!

This ruffle is a single piece of fabric that you stitch two lines of gathering stitches. The gathering stitches are noted on the pattern piece. This is where pattern and instructions did not sync up and created an issue for me. You stitch a gathering line about 3/8 of inch down one edge of the fabric. You then are to attach, by basting, this edge onto a marked line on the front pattern piece, then pull up your gathering stitch so piece fits between marked dots at top and bottom. My error was I did not mark the line well on front pattern piece, thus required me to measure and mark on the front piece. When you baste the piece to the front and pull up the gathering stitch that also tends to pull the front fabric piece. So rip, rip, rip out the basting stitches, then gather the piece, then attach to front piece. That was my method. Also before attaching the ruffle, you are to turn under about 3/4 on the other side of the piece and press under. Now there are gathering lines in this area also. Only I failed to mark those. Yet looking at the drawings you can see a basting stitch down the center of the folded under piece, so I decided to run a basting line down that piece to hold the fold in place. This was actually a gathering stitch.

The instructions do not tell you to stitch this gathering line though the pattern is clearly marked for this second gathering stitch line. Then you turn that ruffle piece in half and line up the pressed under folded edge to the center of the dress and pull your gathering stitches to fit this side between top edge and bottom. You also need to make sure that the facing piece is turned out so you do not stitch the ruffle to it. Then you stitch this down.

So to answer Gwen's question it was a single piece of fabric, that is folded over thus doubled. I think is necessary to give the ruffle some body. I think there is an easier way to do the ruffle and if I use this dress top again, then I will try a different method.