Ruffled Ribbon American Tee

I saw this simple tee from a blog I love: Brown Paper Packages. I have to craft-lift it for the 4th. Because I have a ruffler foot and LOVE it, I choose to go that route instead of folding by hand.

Materials I use are a simple tee shirt from my daughter's closet, a ruffler foot, and left over ribbon.

My first attempt at copying her ribbon tee was this one. Not so pretty. Hubby says, "Can you add another red/white row?"

 Up close you can see that there are two seam lines on the ribbons. I personally like to ruffle the ribbons first, so I have a more accurate idea of the length of the ribbons.

 After the ribbons are ruffled using the ruffler foot, I change out my feet and sew a straight stitch onto the shirt.

 As you can tell, I did not pin my ribbons, so they are not really straight. I kind of like the "not perfect" look, but if you do, pin away.

 Then my hubby says,"Can you straighten the end of row #2 a little?" In comes my favorite tool: the seam ripper. Because my ribbons are ruffled beforehand, relocating them is not so much of a big deal.

 Tah-dah! My final product. Of course my little girl wears this over the 4th of July holiday and gets syrup on it. Vinegar, here I come.

If you can get past the need for perfection, you can get a lot more done. Also, kids are pretty forgiving.

Here is another simple project doing the same thing, but with her initial.

What do you do with your ruffler foot?
~hurley

PS: Uncle John, I just photographed my backyard....I will post soon. :-)