~Tuesday Tutorial~ Ruffler Foot!

So the other day I got out my ruffler foot and decided that it was time I learned how to use it. This was the results.

Lots of ruffles.

I figured it would be fun to share with you the magics of a ruffler. 

Here it is, the ruffler foot.

Looks like rather a scary contraption at first doesn't it?

First step is putting it onto the machine. Since my machine is a Bernina it is slightly different from most machines in that you have to change the whole shank. You want to make sure that the hook/horse shoe type thing is around the needle clamp.

This lever thing adjusts the amount of ruffling you want done. You can ruffle every stitch, every six stitches, every 12 stitches or no ruffling at all.

You can also adjust the size of your ruffle with the stitch length. It also has the ability to sew a ruffle onto a flat piece of fabric.

Here it is in motion without any fabric in it.

You then feed the fabric in underneath the black grabber thingamagig. (You will have to excuse my utter lack of technical terms. I really don't know what they are called.)

Here is a shot from the side. As you can see you are putting the fabric in between the black thingamagig and the silver

Or here is my poor attempt at explaining it further with a picture. I admit.... I am not a technical term geek.

Basically you are not placing the fabric to be ruffled next to the feed dogs. When you want to sew a piece of flat fabric along with a ruffle at the same time the flat fabric goes next to the feed dogs.

Here is a close up on how it works. Hope it makes sense. Like I said I am not very good at explaining thing. I  can do things, but not necessarily teach them. 

This it what the final product is going to look like.

All nice and ruffled. You can sort of see the variation in stitch length and how that effects the size of the ruffles. You can ruffle really tight or you can make the ruffles more spread out. My ruffler foot actually has a piece broken off of it so that I can only make a ruffle at every stitch or never. I need to get one that does the variations.

On of the perks of a ruffler is no more sitting an pulling threads by hand until the break or leave you with sore fingers. And then it is all predistributed and you don't have to go crazy trying to even it out.

Well, that is all for now. I really need to work on my description skills.

Toodles

Opps, no tutorial...

So it didn't work to write up a tutorial yesterday. I simply ran out of time. So that won't start till next week. 

Anyhow, I do have some exciting news. I finally found the cable to use for getting the pictures off of the camera!!!

So that means I have just downloaded a whole bunch of pictures and simply have to sort through them and post them. So you have something to look forwards to.

I had mentioned last year that I made my first gingerbread house and had taken pictures to post. Well, here they are. I know.... really, really, really, late. 

And I would like to introduce you to one of my best friends. That's right, my sewing machine! She is a Bernina 930. None computerized, all metal parts and a dream to sew on. I shall write a review on her one of these days.

The other day I learned how to use my new favorite toy, the gathering foot!

I also learned how to use my ruffler.

There were piles like this all around the house as I played with the different stitch length/thread tension ratios.

I took pictures and will post a tutorial on them both. 

You can actually sew and pleat at the same time. So you can pleat one fabric onto another fabric. It is cool.

That's all for now.

Toodles