Making: Tiered Maxi Skirt + Crop Top Combo [Making Ruffles with Elastic]

This wasn't a new project but a remake of stuff I've made before. The skirt was a repeat of the bottom part of this dress, with just a waistband added. I've made too many crop tops to count in my life (latest one here), so not much added value in another tutorial. Instead I'll just show how I've recently been making my ruffle details using elastic!

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

I. I started with my canvas, aka the top I had made:

II. Then I measured 2 pieces of elastic, the same length as the distance you want the ruffle to cover (or a couple cm less, since the elastic will lose some of its power in this process). In my case here it was the shoulder strap length.

III. Then I made two fabric straps identical to the shoulder straps, but double as long. I took the elastic and pinned it along the center of the strap, at regular intervals. In my opinion the fastest and easiest way to do this is to first pin ends of elastic to ends of the fabric strap, then pin middles together, and then middles of each half. Continue alining and pinning the midway point of each 1/4 and so on, until you have something like this:

IV. Then stretch the elastic out as you sew a straight stitch down to secure it in place. Then you'll have a squiggly ruffle like this:

.. Which you can pin onto your garment:

I didn't stop at the shoulder straps, but continued the ruffles down the front, and added a couple more bits down the middle as well. More is more.

xo,

Julia