ozcountryquiltingmum

Shirring elastic tutorial.

Many of you were interested in the shirring elastic, I will give you a quick tutorial as it is too easy if you know what to do.

This is shirring elastic, it comes on a spool like normal thread, I then hand wind it onto the bobbin with a little bit of tension applied.

You only have to use shirring elastic in the bobbin, whatever colour normal thread for the topstitching. You may need to loosen off your bobbin cover a little to draw up the shirring elastic.

Then it is just normal sewing. Notice here I didn't do my top hem first-should have, it is much easier to hem first, before it is all gathered. Make sure you securely anchor the start of the row, by whizzing back and forth a few times.

Keep going, notice I am doing it on the flat piece, you only need to sew the dress up at the finish.
Second row sewing line is dependent on how close or wide you want the look. Needs to be straight, so either work of your previous line like I have, or use masking tape to mark the line.
Here we are after 5 rows...
.
...and here is the back.
Just need to sew the two pieces together, hem top and bottom and put in some straps for little girls, i just used ribbon on DD's a few posts ago. You are done.
Shouldn't have shown you really...no-one will think I am very clever after seeing how simple it is!!
As you can imagine, you pick a piece of fabric generously wider than the girl's dimensions and then you get a lovely gathered looking skirt.