This shirring tutorial has kindly been provided by Birgitta Designs and originally appeared on her blog which are the self described confessions of a fabricoholic!  Check out her Folksy shop for her beautiful handmade products: http://folksy.com/shops/MissBsBoudoir

Now I've mastered it I thought I'd pay it forward and share my newly learnt technique. I'm going to write this tutorial as I would have wanted it when I was trying to figure it out so if its over simplified I apologise.

For those that havent heard of it shirring is like a fake smock effect - such as on this dress in my Folksy shop

Shirring elastic is great stuff and looks like this dont do what I did and try doing it with the thinest elastic you can find and put that in your bobbin - at that stage I knew what I wanted to do but no clue how and I'd certainly never heard of shirring elastic....

It is readily available from most haberdashery and fabric shops. To set yourself up ready for shirring you 1st need to hand wind the shirring elastic around your bobbin. You dont need to pull it tight or else it wont work properly later when you are sewing. once you've wound your bobbin it should resemble this...

                         

Then you then load your bobbin as normal.

In order to achieve the smocked effect you need to adjust your thread tension to about 4 or else when you sew it will just be flat with no puckering up you also need to change your straight stitch to the longest and widest you can again to achieve this smocked effect...

                     

You start by placing your fabric right side up and - very important - before you stitch lock your first stitch or everything will just stretch out as you sew and no smocking will appear...I know this because everything I'm telling you not to do I HAVE done. Then sew your 1st straight line what may happen is that it wont immediately be obvious that it is smocking but as you go on doing more lines it will become obvious, at the end of each line you again need to lock your stiches or unravelling will occur.

The second picture above is what your fabric should look like after the first line - there is every possibility that it wont but dont be disheartened keep practicing (or mail me) because when you get it you'll be so chuffed with yourself.

            

Well it is actually very simple, I'm not a seamstress by any means so I wont use any technical jargon but basically you need a big rectangle of fabric the length you want for your dress plus seam allowance. The width needs to be approx double your width this is because when you have shirred it the width will be less. so forgive my very basic drawing but this is kinda what I mean.