Every year my good friends at FaveCrafts release a new pattern a day to celebrate National Craft Month, and this year is no exception. Check out all of the wonderful selections in a variety of craft techniques, but please note my very favorite, my Strawberry Cream Tiered Apron.
Strawberry Cream is a half apron made of just one yard of your favorite cotton print. It has clever construction (if I do say so myself) and is a great introduction to both flat-felled seams and manual gathering.
When I do gathered sewing I like to do the gathers manually. I decide what ration I want to use, and do the math from there. In gathering, ratios are expressed in the number of inches at the bottom of the ruffle as opposed to the number of inches at the unruffled top of the fabric, for example 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 4 to 1, etc.
The higher the first number, the more ruffly the ruffle! Just as an example, the top tier of Strawberry Cream is 1.5 to 1, and the two lower ones are 2 to 1. You can see that the lower two ruffles have more width at the bottom making the gathers tighter.
To make my gathers spread out evenly I like to mark my pieces at the center mark, or sometimes even in quarters, and line up the marks. This makes sure you don’t have a ton of gathers in one section and almost none in another..
Now some people have asked me about a ruffling foot for their sewing machines. Yes they exist and yes they are a great time saver but I personally prefer not to use them because it’s too difficult to adjust the ratio, and I find my gathers don’t look as perfectly spaced using the ruffling foot as they do if I manage them manually, and yes I care. You may not and that’s cool too!
So for the full pattern click on over to FaveCrafts https://www.favecrafts.com/Sewing/Strawberry-Cream-Tiered-Apron, and thanks again for stopping by!