Ruffles, Ruffles Everywhere Ruffles

Part of my New Year's resolution was to do something creative every day. Most days I'm knitting away, churning out row after row of afghan goodness. But lately I've been trying to find new projects to try. This is one of them. It's a ruffle necklace. I loved the champagne color of the silk material and had seen this tutorial a few days ago. I followed her instructions loosely and made a few changes to simplify the process.

I used the largest basting stitch my machine could make. I broke several threads tugging and pulling on the bobbin thread, trying to get it to scrunch up and ruffle. Finally I adjusted my stitch length to the longest setting and it worked great.

I also found it much easier to knot one end before I started scrunching and ruffling. The first few times before the thread would break, I felt like I was treading water. I would pull the thread, scrunch the fabric and try to push it toward the other end and it would just keep moving closer to that end. Once I figured out to knot the other end (the end I'm not tugging on), the ruffles stayed in place.

And when Lillyella says to make a big enough gap for the chain to fit through, she's not kidding. I broke my seam halfway through the first necklace because I sewed it too close to the folded edge. My safety pin wouldn't go through and in my impatience to get this done, I pushed too hard and SNAP! there goes my thread.

Grrrrr, getting a little irritated with all this thread breaking.

Time to make hearts on my pincushion.
I blame my son J. for the broken thread. He and his girlfriend were settling into the couch in my sewing room (also known as the upstairs parlor) and he was ahem-ing rather loudly to get me to leave quickly. I reminded him that he was supposed to be babysitting tonight and I had made plans to sew all evening. Not my fault his plans changed and he ended up coming home. I wasn't budging. I had a necklace to make. And some chaperoning to do.
I'm pretty happy with the end result. I think I'll wear it tomorrow but I need to take it off before we go to sissy's for dinner. She'll probably try to take it.