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Video: Creating ruffles on a serger with Bernina
Today’s tutorial is brought to you by Bernina, who created this quick video that demonstrates one of my favorite (and often overlooked) features of the home serger: the ability to create fast and easy ruffles.
There are several benefits to creating ruffles on a serger instead of gathering by pulling basting stitches:
- It’s really fast. As you can see in the video, you just set the machine up and feed the fabric through. It’s far less time consuming.
- The gathers are even. There’s no hand adjustments needed, so it’s far less tedious to create perfect ruffles.
- You can gather and sew in one step. As you can see in Bernina’s video, their handy dandy gathering foot allows you to gather one piece of fabric while sewing it to a straight edge at the same time.
- The edges are finished. All of this, plus the edge is neatly finished. All in one step.
There is only one drawback in creating ruffles on the serger. When you gather fabric by hand, it’s easy to make the finished gathers the exact length you need.
The serger method is better for creating long strips of ruffles, which you can then trim to the size you need.
Method 1: Gathering foot
The first method is the one shown above in the Bernina video, using a gathering foot.
Attach the gathering foot to your machine and feed fabric through normally. The foot does the work for you and gathers the fabric without any additional machine adjustments needed. Pretty cool, huh?
You can even use it to sew a ruffle to a straight piece all in one step. When I saw this in action at our local Bernina dealer, I was so impressed with the result.
Method 2: Differential feed
The second method can be done without a gathering foot.
All you need to do is crank up your differential feed as far as it will go. The differential feed is (in a nutshell) what controls how fast fabric is fed beneath the foot and fed out again behind the foot.
When you raise the differential feed, fabric is fed in faster than its fed out, resulting in neat little ruffles.
I’ve found that this method works best if you increase your stitch length to 3-4mm.
That’s all you need to create super fast ruffles on your serger. The Bernina sergers do a particularly amazing job with this with a lot less fiddling than I’ve experienced with other machines.
You can check out more Bernina videos and tutorials on using the serger on their blog, WeAllSew.
Have you ever used the serger for ruffles? If so, which method do you prefer?
Comments
Rebecca
April 7, 2014 #
I use the differential feed to gather (on my Elna machine). If it’s not the right length I pick out one of the needle threads to gather tighter/looser as needed. I used this recently on a top I made- love having the edges finished at the same time (not to mention time saving). You could use it to set in a sleeve if it’s quite full & needs gathering first.
Sarai
April 7, 2014 #
Great tip!
Sara
April 7, 2014 #
I use it for kids skirts. It´s perfect for those “ballerina”-skirts my tree year old likes.
katie
April 7, 2014 #
Wow, I’m definitely going to try this. Can you use it to gather in a skirt top, like for a dirndl skirt? I guess it might be tricky as you couldn’t know the final length.
Sarai
April 7, 2014 #
I don’t think it would be too tricky, as long as you weren’t particular about buying the exact right amount of fabric. You could just gather with this method and keep sewing until the waist is the right length or slightly bigger, then take it out of the machine and trim it to the size you want.
katie
April 8, 2014 #
I’ll try it. Thanks!
gabriel ratchet
April 7, 2014 #
have a gathering foot for my regular viking. it worked really well, and consistently enough that i could run a trial on the fabric i planned to use, and then calculate the length i needed to cut. i used it for costumes and doll clothes when the girl was little. not much call for ruffles when sewing for her three brothers, and they’re totally not my personal style, so i haven’t used it in years.
The Nerdy Seamstress
April 7, 2014 #
When I started sewing with my mom’s industrial sewing machine and serger, this was how I created ruffles and gathers. When I started sewing again, it was a while new skill I had to learn to create gathers on the sewing machine. I’m glad that I can create gathers on the sergers. Now, I just need to go out and get a serger. Haha!
Lady ID
April 8, 2014 #
Okay I want this. I love my serger but I don’t think it has a gathering foot. I’m going to check though. It would probably be useful on peplums and things like that right?
nobutterfly
April 8, 2014 #
I have a question about the book, it looks amazing, and the offer is great but shipping makes it kind of expensive. Will the book also be available via Amazon or bookdepository?
Sarai
April 9, 2014 #
Yes, it will be on Amazon.
Note that shipping within the US is free on our site when you spend $50 (which is the price of the pre-order bundle we’re offering exclusively to those who signed up for the pre-order list).