When I started working on my daughter’s Prom dress it became apparent pretty quickly that I was going to be gathering metres upon metres of tulle to achieve the volume and silhouette she was wanting. The idea of this really daunted me, and so to make my life a little easier I bought a ruffler foot in the hopes that it would make it easier to gather a lot of tulle quickly.
I purchased the Bernina #86 ruffler foot from Sew Masters here in Australia, and it was quite pricey coming in at $113 AUD. I don’t usually purchase a lot of specialty feet – i have a few, but i prefer to try and get along with what I have most of the time, so this was kind of a big deal for me.
After trying it out I was honestly blown away by how easy it was to pleat or gather large amounts of fabric quickly and I think this might be my new favourite foot. I definitely recommend it and put together a full review on my Youtube channel that goes through how to use the foot and all it’s features.
Essentially the way this foot works is to pull in fabric using a ruffler blade with every stitch it takes. You can adjust how much fabric is pulled in, and also how many stitches the machine takes between pleats. It takes some calibrating to get it set up the way you want it for each project but i think it is totally worth it for how efficient and accurate it is.
I think you’re probably going to be seeing me use this for a lot more projects in the future. I really hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions let me know in the comments!
