Stuffed and Ruffled

What's up kids? I hope your Christmas was lovely. I held the blahs at bay until the day after and then kablamo! A nifty cold/sinus infection/stuffiness invaded my head. Never before have I been so lazy, though. I watched Season 5 of Lost, read 2 books, played computer games, and ingested copious amounts of hot and soothing beverages. It feels good to do nothing for a bit.

I got a nice bit of sewing goodies for Christmas. My favorite is my brand new ruffler. Lemme tellya--they're a bit scary looking. Very technical and...intimidating. But there's really not much to them. I read the instructions for installation and that was it. You can sew away. The only thing I had to do was adjust it to fit my needle position, but it tells you how to do it and then it's easy peasy.

 Note to self: thread machine before attaching ruffler. Second note to self: take foot off of pedal before threading machine (it was a close one this time).

I spent the afternoon playing around with it. Here's what I made (or, I guess to be accurate, here are some ruffled fabric strips):

 On this setting (a ruffle every stitch) it makes a nice gather.

This is a deeper ruffle every 12 stitches.

 Here's a whole range of whatnot. I like the third from the bottom and the bottom one (a mid-sized pleat every 6 stitches).

Then I sewed a fabric tube to enclose the raw edges and ruffled that:

This will be cute across a bag or small clutch. These will press into place nicely (I hope).

 

And just to see if you could ruffle both ends:

Only problem is I couldn't get the pleats to go in the same direction, but it gives it a nice puffy 3-D effect in the middle.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to make yet. OK, that's not true. I know what I'm going to make, but it's only one thing. I'm not sure what ELSE I'm going to make after that.

Back soon, lovies!