simply shirring, and a pretty pinny

Today, hurrah!  I have something new for you.  The apron dress, one of our old pals here on cfw, is now available in a ready-to-sew pattern. 

(Click right here on this cover image to go to the ready to sew patterns page.)

Here are some photos of the cover sample, a little larger.

 

 Here's what one of our friendly pattern testers had to say about it:

" I love the pattern for the peasant dress and apron. I am so excited to make a second one. I had so much fun learning to use the elastic thread and gathering up the fabric with that method. AND I was pretty afraid of the binding but am now pretty good at it thanks to your information. I am off to find 3 more pieces of fabric for another outfit. Thanks so much for this fun pattern."

Any time I can be instrumental in sending someone off to find more fabric, I feel completely fulfilled.  My work here is done.

This dress is really a lot of fun to make, fits a child for a long time, and as a bonus, if you're not a fan of buttonholes or zippers, hasn't any. 

Fans of our peasant dress will recognize an old friend here.  One skill that's essential to getting the peasant dress right (and one thing that a couple of testers had trouble with) is machine shirring with elastic thread.  Now, this is one of those things that may be tricky to get started with, but once you've got it, it's easy and valuable in so many places.

So, of course, I'll show you.

Shirring:

Basically, the type of shirring we're talking about uses elastic thread in the bobbin to do its magic.  Elastic thread comes on spools, in black and white, from your sewing goodies shop.

First order of business is to get the elastic onto the bobbins that your sewing machine uses.  It has been recommended by other folks that you hand-wind the elastic onto the bobbin.  I haven't tried it.  That sounds like tedious torture to me, so I wind mine with ye olde bobbin winder on my machine, and it seems to work just fine.  

Also in the above picture, you'll see I've got a piece of quilting-weight cotton fabric, with one edge finished with a little double-fold hem.

Now, I'm going to shirr the edge of the fabric here, running my first row of stitches about 1/8" to the inside of the hem stitching.  That'll give me a little ruffle on the edge.  I'm using my machine's longest stitch length, a 5mm stitch.  At the beginning and end I'll backstitch.

First row:

You'll notice that hardly did any gathering. 

Here's the back of that row:

Then I'll put another row 1/8" to the inside of the first one, flattening the fabric as I sew:

That gathered it a little more, not much.

A third row, same rules:

Now you see what we've got, a loosely-gathered edge. 

Here's the back:

Here we'll tie the ends of the three elastic threads together on each end:

And now, with the elastic facing up, we'll take a hot iron and puff steam all up and down our elastic rows until they stop scrunching up.

And here's what happens:

Magic.  Our loosely-gathered edge has become a considerably-gathered edge.  And there you have it.  No mystery, really, after all!

So:

-Get yourself "A Pretty Pinny".

-Shirr up a storm.

-Take pictures and post them in the CFW Flickr Photo Pool so we can all ooh and ahh.

Can't wait to see your creations!

~Erin~

Comments

[Claire]

Hi, thanks for this great tutorial. I just wondered if you can give me some advice. If you were to shirr a girls dress for example, how much extra do you think you would need to add to the pattern so when it gathers in it still fits nicely? Hope that makes sense! Thanks :)

[children's fashion workshop]

Hi, Claire! Shirring is really very forgiving, but I would say you could probably estimate 1 1/2 to 2 times the width for an edge you'd like to shirr. Different fabrics will, of course, gather different amounts, so experimenting is key.

Good luck!
~Erin~

[heather]

thanks for this! I tried this years ago (ok, 3 yrs ago but that was less kids!) from an Ottobre pattern and it said to go in a spiral! yikes! don't! I scrapped it and just sewed a butterick pattern w/elasic yoke/sleeves. btw, what is your fav. place to get material? you have great things. I only have a joann's store and a quilting store here

[children's fashion workshop]

I have a nice independent fabric store in my area, but just as often as I get fabric there I'll buy it online. I use fabric.com a lot, have used sewbaby.com also with good success, and loved Denver fabrics before they changed hands (haven't ordered from them since, so I don't know how things are there now.) Thanks for the compliments. You can really do a lot with a JoAnn and a quilting store.

Good luck!
~Erin~

[heather]

thanks for your time!