The Art of Darkness

Tutorial: Ruffled Jacket


These are general instructions for adding cascading flowers to a jacket or sweater.

Materials:

  • A boxy jacket or sweater (I made the one shown here, but you can purchase one instead)
  • 4 yds charmeuse, chiffon, or other lightweight fabric
  • Matching thread
  • Frog closure or button and elastic loop (optional)
Click the thumbnails for larger images.

 
Cut Strips

 
Choose your fabric color. I was trying for a tone-on-tone look, so I used two different fabrics in slightly different shades of the jacket’s color. You could also use contrasting colors.

Each flower is made of eight layers of fabric, stacked and gathered. Begin by cutting 2-1/2″ strips of fabric (I used a rotary cutter, which makes it a little faster).

 
Cut Rectangles

 
Stack eight strips (I alternated strips of the two different shades), then cut them into 4″ lengths.

 
Stack and Stitch

 
Run a few stitches through all layers to tack them together.

 
Cut Corners

 
Round off the corners to make an oval-ish shape(you don’t have to be especially neat or even). Note that there are going to be stray threads on the raw edges. If you want very neat edges instead of “shabby chic,” you may want to use pinking shears to trim the corners or select a fabric that doesn’t ravel easily.

 
Fold and Tack

 
Gather the top two layers of fabric into a sort of cone shape and stitch several times to tack.

 
Fold More and Tack

 
Gather the next two layers up around the tacked cone, and stitch through all four layers to tack.

 
Finished Flower

 
Repeat twice more with the other layers, gathering and tacking.

 
Stitch to Jacket

 
Starting at the bottom edge of each side of the jacket, position a flower near the edge and stitch in place. Overlap the flowers so the point of each “cone” is hidden by the petals of the flower on top. You may also want to run a small stitch or two through the bottom petals of each flower so they don’t flop around and reveal the messy tacking stitches at the bottom of the cones.

The flowers will meet in the middle of the back of the jacket. Stitch a little rosette of ruffled fabric over the points of the last two flowers to hide their tacking stitches.

Depending upon the stiffness of the jacket and the weight of the fabric you used for the flowers, the mass of flowers may tend to pull the edges of the jacket down a little. If this is the case, add a frog closure on the inside front of the jacket to help hold it in place. (I just used a button on one side and a loop of narrow elastic on the opposite side.)

 
Finished Jacket

 
Go over the finished jacket with a lint roller or a piece of masking tape to pick up loose threads from the finished flowers.

And you’re finished! Wear it someplace special.