A View to a Frill

How to ruffle it up on a no-frills budget

Blue skies, bright sunshine, sea and sand… sadly things you can’t always bank on for this time of year. However, it always was a safer bet that bright sartorial shades would be out this season to blow away the cobwebs of the winter gloom, and so it was, this year, with many an equally radiant frill on frocks and shirts.

Images: Firstview/ vogue.co.uk
Final Image: Net-a-porter

Whilst still on the crest of a wave in the couture world, the ruffle trend is also rippling its way through the high street. It’s even cheaper – and dead easy – to do your own version. All you need is a plain dress – ideally peplum or one-shoulder – in a nice colour, some matching fabric, a few basic sewing accoutrements… and some high-street cheating ingenuity. Read on and learn…

You Will Need

•Peplum or one shoulder dress. Scouting shops and tinterweb, I’ve come across: a purple peplum frock from River Island (£10 on the sale, Prod. no 576235) ; a blue ruffle dress (1697455) and yellow peplum dress (1692316) from New Look (£15 and £10 respectively) a navy ruffle peplum skirt, also from New Look (£12, Prod. no: 1647014); a lilac one-shoulder dress (£11, Prod. no: 36762027) and a zip back peplum dress (£7, Prod. no: 36751022) both from Peacocks. I’d also heavily recommend looking to your local charity shop or market for cheap plain dresses to customise.

•Matching fabric, either cotton/poplin, silk satin or chiffon depending on what matches your chosen dress.

•Matching thread.

•Large sheet of paper.

•Card.

•Ruler.

•Pencil.

•Drawing pin.

•Scalpel and cutting mat or scissors.

•Felt tip pen.

•Sewing machine.

•Fabric scissors.

•Dressmaking pins.

Hours

Hard to say, it depends on what frill pattern you intend to do and how complex it is. It can take anything from a week to a few hours, depending on how fiddly and detailed your frill pattern is. My experience is that it’s more time-consuming than it looks

Difficulty

Easy

Generally pretty simple, self-explanatory and straightforward, but watch out for any unwanted folds of puckering on your garment when sewing your frills on.

Total Cost

Again, difficult to say, exactly, because it depends on how easily and cheaply you can buy your fabric. The poplin cotton I used for my dress for this entry was £2.50 a metre from Goldhawk Road, outside Shepherd’s Bush Market, but if it’s silk you’re using you’d be looking at more than that, within the region of £10 per metre or more, from my experience. I’d also recommend scouting around the Goldhawk shops for reasonably-priced lengths of silk, if you can. However, one thing that’s for sure is that…

Save It!

…The dress I made for this entry was a copy of a Roksanda Ilincic asymmetric dress worth £2,205! The Chic Cheat solution damage? About £16 – that’s a saving of £2189, or nearly a 138th of the original price!

How Will You Frill Yours?

Here’s how to create the various types of frills from the above pictures:

Style 1

Images: Firstview/ vogue.co.uk/ Net-a-porter

Frill type: Spirals

The cascading frills on these flouncy frocks need to be cut in a spiral on your fabric. Simply start by making a spiral pattern on paper. Rather than guess, I’d recommend using a compass to be exact. Chances are, you won’t have one wide enough to make big statement frills, so you can make you own using, card, a ruler, a pencil and a scalpel or scissors. Simply draw around your ruler and cut out your new rectangle of card.

Mark out points at 5-15cm intervals, depending on how big you want your frills to be, remember the bigger the interval, the wider the frill will come out as. Pierce in the centre of the card at each of these intervals and make a hole large enough for the tip of a pencil to draw through. Your new compass should look something like this…

Place your compass on paper and hold it in place as close to the edge as possible with a drawing pin (make sure you’re doing this on a surface you don’t mind being dented. This is where I’d mostly recommend using a cutting mat. Holding your compass down with the pin, use your pencil to trace a set of 3-5 circles through the holes where you marked the measurements on your compass.

After you’ve drawn your circles, it’s time to link them. Draw about three quarters of the way around them and then draw an arc linking each circle to the next one, try to keep your lines as parallel as possible and linking the circles smoothly.

Cut your pattern out, then pin it to your fabric. You might want to fold your fabric if you wish to make more than one frill.

Mark out 0.5cm around the outside edges of your fabric spiral – you can do this by stitching that distance from the edge with your machine, in which case, set it onto a long, loose stitch so it is easy to unpick – fold it over and fix it in place. You may wish to iron it or pin it.

Using a normal stitch, sew a line 1mm from the edge of the fold. Trim away the excess fabric. Fold it over again by 1mm, so that the raw edge is no longer visible, and sew another line as close to the edge as possible.

Pin your frills to your fabric, hand-stitch it in place. Take your pins out and machine sew it 0.5cm from the edge. Trim away the excess fabric, fold your frill over so that you’re sewing on the other side of the frill. Top-stitch 1mm from the edge where the frill’s attached to the fabric. Your frills are now fully affixed.

My version - an example of creative frilling

Style 2

Images: Firstview/ vogue.co.uk/ Net-a-porter

For a simple diagonal frill, simply cut a strip of fabric about 25-30cm wide and 75cm-1m long, on the bias, i.e. diagonally across the fabric, at exactly 45 degrees to the straight grain.

Alternatively you could use the spiral method (see Style 1) with a very wide spiral. You probably won’t need to make it very long – a maximum of 2-3 circles’ worth, but with a large diameter.

Pin onto your garment, folding and tucking your fabric so that it fits along the side, and also to help create kooky, wavy effects. Tack stitch it in place. Machine sew it 0.5cm from the edge. Remove the tacking stitches and trim away the excess fabric, fold your frill over so that you’re sewing on the other side of the frill. Top-stitch 1mm from the edge where the frill’s attached to the fabric.

Mark out 0.5cm around the outside edges of your fabric, fold it over and fix it in place. You may wish to iron it or pin it.

Using a normal stitch, sew a line 1mm from the edge of the fold. Trim away the excess fabric. Fold it over again by 1mm, so that the raw edge is no longer visible, and sew another line as close to the edge as possible.

Style 3

Image:Firstview/ vogue.co.uk

For a sideways frill, use the spiral method (see Style 1) with as long a spiral as possible, made from circles at 5-10 cm intervals – i.e. not very wide.

Place down the side of the garment, folding the fabric back on itself by a tiny amount at 10cm intervals, to add some flair to your frills.

Tack stitch it in place. Machine sew it 0.5cm from the edge. Remove the tacking stitches and trim away the excess fabric, fold your frill over so that you’re sewing on the other side of the frill. Top-stitch 1mm from the edge where the frill’s attached to the fabric.

Mark out 0.5cm around the outside edges of your fabric, fold it over and fix it in place. You may wish to iron it or pin it.

Using a normal stitch, sew a line 1mm from the edge of the fold. Trim away the excess fabric. Fold it over again by 1mm, so that the raw edge is no longer visible, and sew another line as close to the edge as possible.

Style 4

Image:Firstview/ vogue.co.uk

For a long, draped frill, like the ones shown above, cut a long piece of fabric like the one shown below, on the bias i.e. diagonally across the fabric, at exactly 45 degrees to the straight grain. The piece should be about 1- 1.25 m long and 50-75 cm wide.

Mark out 0.5cm around the outside edges of your fabric – you can do this by stitching that distance from the edge with your machine, in which case, set it onto a long, loose stitch so it is easy to unpick – fold it over and fix it in place. You may wish to iron it or pin it.

Using a normal stitch, sew a line 1mm from the edge of the fold. Trim away the excess fabric. Fold it over again by 1mm, so that the raw edge is no longer visible, and sew another line as close to the edge as possible.

Sew your fabric onto the top of your garment. Attach it further down the garment in such a way that it tucks under and in at the sides.

Repeat this process the same distance further down the dress. You should be left with two billowing drapes and a handkerchief ending.

Frill Circle

You can use spiral frills down the front of shirts to give them a ruffle collar effect.

One way is to put a spiral frill on each side of the front collar in an S-shape…

Another way is to put them in straight lines down the front…

Five fabulous ways to add some frill to your fire for when the heat is on. Ruffles are what’s hot right now, whatever the weather!