Method Playground: Ruffles

As you know, I will look for any reason to *girl up* my layouts, and this week's challenge on the Playground was the perfect excuse: ruffles! It was also the perfect excuse to learn something I've been wanting to try: gathering fabric into ruffles. I found a great tutorial on line (of course!), and couldn't believe what a *cinch* it was.

Here's the how-to:

1. Cut your fabric into a strip. Mine is about 1 1/2" by 30"


2. Use your sewing machne to sew two lines down the length of the strip close to the edge, being careful not to et the lines cross over each other.


3. At one end, tie the two back thread (from the bobbin) together.


4. At the other end, begin pulling on the bobbin ends and gently sliding the fabric along the thread to gather.

To create the flower, use a narrower and shorter length of fabric (mine is about 1/2" by 6", but I would make it more like 12") and follow the same instructions for gathering. Once ruffled, stitch the two ends of the strips to each other and flatten to create a circle.

Could it get any easier?! Give it a try to girlie-up your next layout, and post your creations at Method Playground. And here's one more link to give you some inspiration for your project: ruffled flowers.

This layout uses a sketch from My Sketch World.