Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

No, I'm not selling gum. I'm talking about double ruffles or self-lining ruffles. I would rather line anything than to have to hem or finish an edge. I guess you could call it lazy sewing. I made a runner with ruffles on both ends to place on the dresser I have for sale in my booth. I'm sure this isn't the proper way to do things but I think it should be the new standard for sewing. First, determine the size you want your runner and double the width. For instance, if you wanted a runner 80 in. in length and 14 in. wide you would cut a piece 80 in. (plus your seam allowance) by 28 in. wide (plus seam allowance). Here is my piece of fabric

Now pay close attention...take your fabric and fold it in half. Got that? That's my secret.

Now do the same thing for the ruffles that you will sew to each end. Cut the length you want (plus allowance)   by double the width that you want (plus allowance).

Remember the secret...fold in half.

Now take each of your rectangle pieces and place them right sides together and stitch around 3 sides, turn right side out and stitch the fourth side closed. I just top-stitch it at the very edge. Then, make ruffles out of your fabric for the ruffles. Sorry, I don' teach those kind of tutorials. I only teach let's cheat and be lazy kind of tutorials. I don't have pics of all of this. I get excited when I get past the cutting stage and just start sewing really fast.

Then take your ruffle pieces and lay each on top of one edge of your runner, overlapping a quarter of an inch or more and stitch together. This is what it will look like. See how the all of the edges are on the inside. Also having the extra fabric makes it look more full and more custom-made.

Of course, the runner is self-lined with all of the raw edges on the inside as well. It only cost just a little more to self-line and it's so worth the time and trouble it saves and of course, the nice clean edges.

So who else doubles everything they possibly can when they sew? Next on the sewing agenda is slip-covers. I can't get them out of my mind. I am on the look-out for the perfect furniture specimen to experiment with.