Elizabethan Neck Ruffle

It is New Years resolution time and most of mine are about being better about keeping up with the tech savvy world.  I love to make things, design, draw, paint, knit...anything that involves me actually creating something with materials.  The area in my life that I am a total slacker in is emailing, texting and keeping in touch with people.  I love keeping this blog to share what I am making, but I have been terrible about posting on a regular basis. So one of my resolutions is to post something every week.  Even if it is just a short note about what project I am currently working on.  Goodness knows I have a lot of them in process so I am aiming to do better.

On to the first project of the week!

A friend of mine sent me a message the other day asking if I could make her a neck ruffle (ruff) to go with a costume for her New Years Eve show.  Seed Art Share is a super cool company that I had the pleasure of performing with this past year as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream and for New Year they have a moving play that takes the audience around Raleigh to meet characters that are important to NC history.  It is a interactive show to celebrate our awesome area as we ring in the new year. Unfortunately Sir Walter Raleigh's ruff had gone missing so here is where I come into the picture.
I love getting the call for fun individual projects.  It gives me the time to learn how to make something new with the deadline to make sure it doesn't fall into the depths of my many on going projects.  I found a great tutorial that I used to help me create my ruff.  For the most part I followed what she said with the exception of two changes.  1- I used a wired ribbon so that the ruff could easily be fluffed if it gets squished out of shape when it is being stored.  In a perfect world this would not be an issue but with lots of people using a costume it is always good to think about how to make it last as long as possible. 2- I used a ribbon on the back to tie the ruff on rather than hook and eyes.  Once again I always try to make a costumer piece be functional for a range of people.  The ribbon closure means that more people can wear it comfortably depending on their neck size.  In the end I think my first attempt at making a neck ruffle was a fun new sewing adventure and I enjoyed the final product.  If I make another one I would try not pulling the ruffles to close together and having fewer ruffles. While I love the full look I did have to work a lot to make them lay just the way I wanted and I think a few less ruffles might correct that issue.

                                               Sir Walter Raleigh is now complete again!



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