Anyone who's been here over the past year knows I've gradually developed a moderate addiction to ruffles. Here's how to create a subtle little ruffle detail at the cuff of a shirt or dress - and the same logic applies to creating a popped ruffle collar (I'll go into that in the full tutorial for this dress).
Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.
I. Here's my cut sleeve pieces for reference. I did cropped length sleeves, hence the shorter length. I also wanted my sleeves to be looser around the wrist, with enough length there for a pleat, hence more width there too.
II. And here the pieces I cut for the cuffs and ruffles. Note again that I made my cuffs loose. For the fullness of ruffle you see in the ready cuff, the long strip of fabric for the ruffle needs to be about 2.3-2.5 times as long as the cuff.
III. To prep the ruffles, I did a very narrow double-fold on one long edge..
.. And added a basting stitch on the other long edge, pulling the bobbin thread to gather the ruffle so it was 1 cm shorter than the cuff length (aka cuff length minus 0.5 cm seam allowances).
IV. Then pinned the gathered ruffle to one cuff piece, right side facing right side..
.. And added the other cuff piece on the other side with the ruffle in between, and sewed the 3 layers together.
V. After pressing, I had this.
VI. Next I pressed a 0.5 cm fold at the raw edges, and closed the cuff into a loop. I totally forgot to take a pic of that step, but what I did was took the spot I'm holding in the pic below, aligned that short edge with the same short edge at the other end of the ruffle, right sides facing, and sewed those together (making sure the ruffle was pointing the other way, not to stitch over it). Then repeated the same with the other side of the cuff, again pushing the ruffle in between out of the way.
Which left me with a completed cuff.
VII. To get ready to attach my cuffs, I set the sleeves in place in my top, and sewed the sleeve underseams.
VIII. To attach the cuff to the sleeve, I opened it up and pinned to the sleeve like this. I also did a pleat on the sleeve, so before pinning the cuff in place I folded my pleat and sewed that in place with a few stitches.
Making sure the right side of the ruffle was against the right side of the sleeve. Then sewed around along the fold line.
IX. After that, flipped the cuff over the seam, and hand-stitched the loose end on the reverse.
Ready! Full dress tutorial coming soon..
xo,
Julia
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