I love the way these dresses turned out and I was surprised to discover that shirring is really pretty simple. I found a great basic shirring tutorial by Kathleen at Grosgrain and it worked like a charm. You can find the tutorial here. I did have to make a few adjustments to my tension and stitch length, I have a newer Bernina Machine and it bunched it up to much so I used a 2 1/2" stitch length and adjusted my tension to 6 and that seemed to be perfect, you kinda just have to play around with it because machines aren't always the same.
These dresses could have been a lot easier if I would have had enough of the same fabric, I had to piece mine together to get two dresses out of the different prints of fabric. You can make these dresses out of a rectangle of fabric and get the same effect. Measure around chest and add about 4", sew a seam up the back, hem both top and bottom, shirr and add straps.
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These dresses could have been a lot easier if I would have had enough of the same fabric, I had to piece mine together to get two dresses out of the different prints of fabric. You can make these dresses out of a rectangle of fabric and get the same effect. Measure around chest and add about 4", sew a seam up the back, hem both top and bottom, shirr and add straps.
And of course I had to make some matching hair clips from the leftover fabric.
