What is Ruching?
Ruche in French refers to a strip of folded or gathered cloth. Ruching, as we sewists say it, involves gathering, pleating or repeatedly folding a fabric as an embellishment. This is then incorporated into a pattern, when making clothes, on sleeves, bodices, waistline seams, on accents like collars, belts, on accessories like sashes, hats etc.
Ruching is an oft-used technique in dressmaking – it creates a 3-dimensional look to the fabric and emphasizes the contours of the form wearing it.
Most of the time, it is applied against a plain seam and the contrast between the gathered/ ruched side and the plain seam side can be striking when applied appropriately. In the hands of a designer who knows his craft, ruching can turn a garment into quite a masterpiece, as it was done in the elaborate gowns in Victorian England.
In mind, I can picture a lady of the court wearing a diaphanous Grecian gown which is ruched on one shoulder or an elaborate gown which is ruched in all the places.
In modern fashion, you will find ruching done all the time on wedding gowns & party gowns.
Uses of ruching in sewing clothes
You can use ruching in your everyday clothes in a subtle way
Ruching used in sleeve patterns
How to incorporate ruching into sleeves
If you want your sleeves to have ruching done in selected places, you will have to alter the pattern of the normal sleeve and add extra fabric where you want to ruche.
Cut out the normal sleeve pattern and make long slashes along the edge of the area where you want the ruching done.
Cut out the slashes and spread them as much as you want – depending on the fullness you want
You can pleat the extra fullness or gather with basting stitches
Another ruched sleeve which has drapey folds
To make this sleeve you will have to add 6 inches extra to the length of a normal sleeve. The sides and bottom edge will be same that of a normal sleeve
Cut out the fabric pattern.
Fold and stitch the top edge into neat folds.
Ruching done on a waistband
Ruching used on bodices and on accents on bodices
Ruching ribbons and used as trims
4 ways of Ruching fabric
1 Gathering with basting stitches
This is the easiest method of ruching. Basting stitches are long stitches you make with a hand needle or your sewing machine which is then pulled to gather the fabric to contain fullness. This gathering creates automatic folds in the fabric, which is what ruching is all about. You will have to adjust the gathers and then stitch along the gathers with the regular stitch to keep the gathers in place
If you do not want to ruche the whole fabric of the garment, there is a way of selectively adding ruched fabric strips which is prevalent in heirloom sewing.
To make a ruched strip , you should preferably choose a thin fabric like cotton batiste. Cut a 45 inch wide strip of fabric about 3.5 inches wide
Press to remove any wrinkles
Fold the long sides 1/2 inches from both sides to the inside. Press to keep this fold in place
Make long stitches for gathering along the long edges (stitch both edges in the same direction)
Pull the thread tails to gather the strip
Gather till you see that you have the puffiness you wanted. You can now add this to wherever you want – like the face of a bag/purse, bodice of a little girl’s frock .
2 Stitching with elastic thread
This method of stitching with elastic thread is called shirring. Checkout the post on sewing with elastic thread (shirring) here for more details. You get the same effect as gathering this way, with minimum effort.
Elastic thread is used in the bobbin and regular thread is used as the top thread. On the surface of the fabric, you cannot see the elastic thread. The elastic thread is wound loosely on the bobbin. A regular thread is used as top thread.
Related posts : How to use a gathering foot ; How to sew ruffles (6 main types of ruffles.
3 Pleating the fabric
Ruching is not simply gathering – it involves pleating, folding and other fabric manipulations as well .
In simply gathering with elastic thread or gathering with basting stitches, you do not have any control of how the fabric will look finally. But with ruching you have full control. You arrange the fabric the way you want, fix the pleats/ arrangements or gathers with basting stitches or pin , then stitch in place with regular stitches and then stitch the ruched edge to another fabric edge ( mostly not ruched)
You can skillfully pleat the fabric to get the ruched effect. You will have to use about 3 times the length of the pattern piece to be able to pleated this way.
Pleat and stitch along one edge
Complete pleating on the other side
Related post : How to sew pleated ribbon trims.
4 Hand stitching a ruche with smocking stitches
This is done by tying knots in the back of the fabric in a pattern. This is also termed as lattice smocking. You can create a variety of such fabric folding by using this method.
A simple way of doing this – You will have to mark the back side of the fabric to be ruched . Here I have marked lines 1″ apart. Then made markings 2 inch apart on the lines. On alternating lines the markings are made so that it lies between the markings on the above and below lines.(as in the picture below).
Then Hand sewing needle and thread is used to gather the markings ( on the back of the fabric). I have made small knots on the markings 1/4 inch deep.A twist with the thread after one or two stitches would do the thing.
When it is done on all the markings it will look like this.
On the front of the fabric an automatic ruched pattern is made.
I have seen this type of ruching done on beautiful bedspreads in high end bed linen showrooms – so easy but looks so beautiful.
You can buy prepleated fabric and use it to maximum effect.
Thin cotton or silk can be ruched into thin gathers by twisting it and tying it into coils for a long time.
After the tying is removed, do not iron it (ofcourse).
This ruching effect do not last washings.
If you have to wash the garment you can again do the tying in the same way and keep it in your cupboard till the time you are using it.
Related posts : 50+ different ways to add patterns and texture to fabric; Fabric glossary; Fashion styles ; How to sew a wedding gown – tips.
Comments 9
Can I fix ruching on a dress I wore to my sons wedding? The ruching on the top of my dress came out a little when someone stepped on my gown.
Author
Hi Bea
Do you have the photo of the dress of how it looked earlier – you can carefully replicate the look by hand sewing – I hope. You can fix anything on the dress : )
Hi there,
Is it possible for a seamstress to remove ruching? There’s ruching on the breast (just one side) of my wedding dress I’d like “smoothed” like the rest of my dress.
Thank you!
Author
Hi Amanda
Yes a seamstress can remove ruching but she will have to replace the ruched fabric with the plain one which involves a lot of work. There is usually a lot of fullness ( extra fabric) where the ruching is done.
Thank you so much! Been looking everywhere for help on ruching as I’m making a ball gown and want a fitted yet shapely bodice. This has helped so much!!!
Making simplicity pattern #2463. Using cotton fabric. Skirt of dress has ruffles formed by folding fabric,pulling it up and tacking. Should I line these folds with something so it holds shape and does not hang flat?
Hello, I need help. I have an evening dress that I want to add a satin neckline. The shape of the neckline is a boat shape and I want to bring it a little closer to the neck all the way to the back. Can you help me with some instructions, will be appreciated.
thank you very much. I am learning sewing and it is very useful.
Author
Thanks ; glad you find it useful ; best wishes