

I added shoulder ruffles to one of my Billie sweatshirt dresses and loved the result so much I decided to make a free pattern so you can make them too! (Take a look at more photos of my Billie dress here.) You can also add these ruffles to the Freya top or dress from my book Stretch, or the Tabitha t-shirt or dress from my book Make it Simple – or basically any garment pattern designed for knit fabrics and which has a shoulder seam.

In this post, I'm going to share a step-by-step tutorial for how to sew the shoulder ruffles, including a video on how to create the curled "lettuce edge" hem on an overlocker (AKA serger). If you don't have this machine, don't worry - keep reading to the end where I share an alternative method of making shoulder ruffles using just a regular sewing machine.