Neapolitain Dress

It's a bad sign when even dresses remind you of ice cream!

The bodice of this dress is from a pattern; but the skirt is my own. It's a super-twirly flouncy, bouncy, girly skirt.

The skirt's 'layers' are cut on the bias to give it the sort of drape that a circle skirt has without using as much fabric.

But that's not the best part about it. The best part is that the skirt can be done in minutes-- with your serger! You can get the how-to here at my  Super Simple Serger Ruffle Tutorial (my very first tutorial!).

Tutorial: Super Simple Serger Ruffles

This is a tutorial on how to make ruffles using your serger and a gathering foot. So you can make dresses like this one in a flash!

Using the gathering foot, the serger gathers, seams and finishes the seam in one step. Once you get it down, it will literally take less time to make the skirt than read this post.

If you don't have a serger-- that's ok! You can make this skirt by gathering on your sewing machine and then stitching the tiers together, or doing it in one step with a gathering foot or a ruffling foot.

First, let's learn about how your serger ruffles:

Nearly all sergers have differential feed-- meaning that they can feed two fabrics through the machine at different rates. When you increase your differential feed, your bottom fabric will feed faster than the top-- that makes gathers or ruffles!

This is what the differential feed dial looks like on my machine. 1.0 signifies neutral-- where the top and bottom feed at the same rate; like on your regular sewing machine.

Some machines also come with a gathering/ruffling foot which will also speed up the rate that the bottom fabric runs through the machine. This is what mine looks like.

The foot will have a metal guide. You can see it clearly in this next photo.

Anything that goes over the metal guide will not be ruffled, anything underneath the guide will be ruffled.

If you don't have a ruffler foot-- don't worry! Your differential feed will do the work for you! You might have to make more adjustments in the next step. Just remember to place the fabric you want to be ruffled on the bottom, and the piece that you are attaching (non ruffled) on the top.


Test Ruffle:
This step seems tedious, but once you get it right once, you'll be able to use the same settings for all fabric of a similar weight. If you have one, attach the gathering foot to your machine or increase your differential feed to 2.0.

Take a scrap of fabric and measure it. Run it through the machine and measure it again.

Now check your ruffling factor. Adjust until you are happy with the amount of ruffling.  For making the skirt using measurements below, make sure that your un-ruffled piece is measuring about 1.5 as long as your ruffled piece. If you're not, there are 3 places to make adjustments on your serger:

1. Tightening your needle tensions will make more ruffles.
2. Loosening your presser foot will make more ruffles (This is a small screw on the top of some machines)
3. Increasing your differential feed and stitch length will make more ruffles.

Doing the opposite for all of the above will make less ruffles.

Now you are ready to work on your project!  

The Skirt

Now it's time to use your new serger powers for good (not evil). The instructions below will help you make a tiered skirt, but you can use the same idea for attaching ruffles to anything!

If you are attaching this to a bodice, like the dress above, make the bodice and measure the waist. If this is going to be a stand alone skirt, measure the person's waist.

You will need 2 widths of bias strips-- one 8 inches wide, and one 4 inches wide:

8 inch strip: roughly 1.5x waist measurement (first tier)
4 inch strip: roughly 6 times as long as the 8 inch strip.  (second and third tier)


You will need to piece the second strip. If you want to have finished inside edges, here is a link to a tutorial on how to piece strips using your serger.

Now you should have your bodice, one short fat strip and one long, long skinny strip.

Pedal to the Metal:
Once everything is cut out, and your ruffling ratio is where you want it, let the fun begin! Take your long skiny strip and put it under the metal guide, right side up. Take your short fat strip and place it over the metal guide.

The bottom fabric will feed much faster than the top-- that's good! Just try and keep both strips even with the metal guide.

From the top it won't look like much.

But if you lift up the top strip you'll see beautiful little ruffles peeking through.

Once you get to the end of the short fat strip, trim off the remainder of the skinny strip, and start again.  No need to press in between tiers-- we'll do it all at the end.

This time, put the just pieced skirt above the metal guide, and what's left of your long, skinny strip on the bottom with right sides together. When you come to the end of the skirt, trim your skinny strip again.

And you are done! 

 

No basting stitches, thread pulling or fiddling with uneven gathers. If this is meant to be a skirt, you can fold down the top of the skirt to create a casing, and run elastic through.

Since this was a Fourth of July dress, and was only going to be worn a couple times, I serged the raw edges of the bodice, straps, and skirt hem.

I also did a ribbon closure instead of a zipper to make it a bit quicker. 

I was able to finish the dress in a single nap. Sometimes you just need a quick project! I hope this tutorial helps you get a bit more utility out of your serger!

Toddler Sun Hat

It's been so hot here lately that my face actually hurts after being in the sun for just a few minutes. I decided to make the kids some hats. This is my third attempt at making a hat. The first two went straight in the trash. :(

This one was actually meant for Amaani-- it coordinates with her puff sleeve dress that I posted last week.  The hat is completely reversible. It's denim on the outside....

 and polka dots on the other.

Which means that Amaani could wear it if she ever got a chance!

Dinosaur Tails

*Gasp* What's that hiding behind the couch? Is it a dragon? An alligator? A giant lizard?

No... It's just Amaani wearing her new dinosaur tail!  She moves fast-- this was the best picture I could get.

I've been wanting to make these for a few months now-- ever since Ishaan became interested in dinosaurs. I used this tutorial which was a little more fiddly than it looks. But I did end up making two exactly alike so the kids wouldn't have to fight!

This backfired on me, because the kids can't tell them apart, and are always convinced that "the one s/he has is MINE". Even if they already have a tail tied onto their back. From now on, I'm making different colors.

These took for.ev.er. to make. Literally hours of not so enjoyable drafting, cutting,  sewing and stuffing; and I found myself wondering if it was worth it. The kids rarely appreciate anything I make them (across all catagories-- food, crafts, siblings... ) and I certainly wasn't going to use them.

But Ishu loved it from the minute he saw them, and even uses his as a pillow sometimes. Amaani likes to chew on the end of hers and I've even seen Kartik playing with them; so of course, it's a favorite project of mine.

Hand Quilting

A few weeks ago during when I wasn't feeling well, I decided to see if I could to some hand sewing to keep myself occupied when I didn't feel like actually sitting at my machine. I worked on the first quilts I made for Ishaan and Amaani.

I sat down and did some hand quilting on Amaani's quilt. (you can barely see the stitching in this picture).

 And I also did their names on the bottom of the quilt.

Obviously, neither of them can read yet, so the additions have been unappreciated so far. I'm hoping when they go through that phase of wanting to put their names on everything, that they will be glad that these are already labeled.

 

Hand-stitching is something I've always avoided (not really sure why?). I've never been very good at it or had the patience; but now I find my self enjoying it. I'm pretty happy with the results-- in fact, I think the main problem I have is with sloppy handwriting!

Another A-line Dress!

Last week during a brief spell of health between two colds, I sewed up this dress for Amaani. The next chance I got, I dragged both kiddos to the park to photograph it so I could put it up on the Strawbazies blog. 

Nothing special about this dress--- except it has sleeves! My very first! The puff sleeves were a request by Kartik. I used this tutorial to alter the pattern, and it worked pretty well. 

The pattern is the same as the reversible dress, (simplicity 1890 again). I love how different it looks with just a few changes. The one isn't lined, and uses bias tape as a facing for the neckline.

 It came together so quick-- I'm definitely going to make more in the future. -- Even Amaani likes it!  I just had to put this photo up to show off her new, cute little teeth.