The Scientific Seamstress: Adding a Ruffled Bib Front to the Simply Sweet

Monday, July 8, 2013

Adding a Ruffled Bib Front to the Simply Sweet

Hi! So, today is a tutorial for how to add a ruffled bib front to the Simply Sweet pattern. The simply Sweet is one of my favourite patterns because of how versatile it is already, but I just HAD to try making it with a ruffled bib front and thought you might like to add it to your Simply Sweet's as well!

First print off your pattern piece/s. To make the ruffles you will want to have them be 2x the height of the front piece (I did empire waist by the way) and I found 3 inches wide to be perfect width

Now for the bib piece itself measure a rectangle that is the height of the front bodice and do about 3.5-4 inches wide

I like to get as much of my ironing done at a time as possible. So iron the edges of the bib front over on the two long sides and fold the ruffle pieces in half and very lightly iron them. Also take your front bodice piece and fold in half and iron to get a good crease down the center.

Set your machine to the longest stitch length for gathering the ruffle strips

Sew down the raw edge of the ruffle strips (folded in half as shown). Do NOT backstitch!!

Make sure to remember to set your machine back to it's normal setting

Pull at your bobbin threads to get your ruffle strip the same width as your bib piece.

Pin on the ruffles! I tried to get a close up picture - It turned out a bit blurry - sorry. But what you are looking at here is that I aligned the raw edge of the ruffle strip with the edge of the folded and ironed over bit of the bib piece. (top right cormer shows it best)