Ruffles EVERYWHERE!

Last week I sat in on Natalie's online Cricut Class, where she made the Thankful banner. She sewed her crepe paper by hand, but mentioned it was much faster to do with a foot ruffler.

Crazy me woke up one night and thought it would be a perfect addition to the 2nd grade craft.

So six hours later, many rips and tears, I have finally perfected the foot ruffler,
and only have 100 done. I need a total of 500.

So....do you have one? Are you interested in getting one??? Here are some photos and comments I have. Maybe you have some wisdom to add.

I started with a roll of crepe paper (streamers) from a local dollar store



Cut it into strips at 15", so that each circle would be the same size.



Install the foot ruffler. Unscrew the foot from your machine.
Using the same screw, fit the ruffler up and under.
{TIPS: Feed your needle FIRST! be sure the foot is UP and the needle is at it's highest point}



The orange screw here on the right controls how deep the pleat is. You can adjust it.

Be sure this "hook" thing, is under the screw that holds the blade in.



Now feed your fabric, or crepe paper in so that it is wove between the guides. You should have one metal piece above your paper. Slide it all the way up to the needle. It may not reach it completely, but the pleat will push it up under as you begin sewing.
{Note: this is to pleat along the edge. You can go OVER all the guides
and pleat down the center also!}




This is how you should see it from sitting behind your machine.

Sorry the pic is so dark.
Above the ORANGE screw are little openings you can adjust. They say 12, 6, 1.
This is for a pleat every 12 stitches, every 6 or 1.

For this I used 1 and had my stitch length about 2.5

Here is the beginning of the sewing. It does pucker up right away, so I lightly pulled to keep it moving. I may have been using a crepe paper that was too thin, or maybe the wrong needle. It did bunch up and tear a handful of time, but I eventually worked out my kinks.




The ruffle will curl itself right up!

I did punch out a 1.75" circle and glued it to the back and another one which I used the CB (SwissDots) for the front. Another 400 to go!!! I will post the pics when I made up the mock up for the kids.

Have you tried the ruffler yet?? Do you have any better tips??