Shirred Dress Sewing Tutorial — Pin Cut Sew Studio

I’ve hopped on the shirred dress train! If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen the shirred dress I made recently using a vintage pattern from the 70’s. Shirred dresses are so comfortable for summer, it didn’t take me long to want to add another one to my wardrobe!

I picked up some tips and tricks for shirring when I made that first dress, so this time I recorded the process to share with you in a video tutorial for sewing an easy, rectangular shirred dress with your sewing machine! I’ve posted the video below along with a list of the tips and troubleshooting ideas so you can refer back to it easily.

Learn how to sew an easy, rectangle shirred dress with ruffled straps on your sewing machine in this beginner friendly video tutorial. I’ll teach you my tips and tricks for shirring, plus troubleshooting ideas for when you can’t seem to get it right…

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Best Fabrics for Shirring

The best fabrics for shirring are lightweight ones. Stick with cottons, linens, rayons, chiffons. Steer clear of anything too heavy like denim (although a rayon denim would work and be very cool!) Lighter weight knits work fine too, but use a ballpoint needle.

Fabrics with stripes or plaids look very cool shirred! Shirring adds a very cool texture to solid fabrics too though, so really, anything goes.

How to Sew a Shirred Dress

I’ll be honest, after I filmed this video, I almost didn’t even edit it to post. I was finding all kinds of things wrong with the lighting — my hair, my makeup, my aging face, ha! But those are all dumb things to avoid editing a video for so I came around and decided to add some realness to the Internet and post it anyway because shirring is such a cool technique that is definitely coming back in style and I really want to help you learn to do it and to see that it really isn’t hard at all!

Without further ado, here’s the video.

Tips and Tricks for Shirring

Here is the basic run down of tips and techniques that I mentioned in the video tutorial that you’ll need to know:

You need to hand wind elastic thread onto your bobbin and use regular thread for the top thread. Elastic thread is not the same as elastic cord, which you use for other projects. Look for it in the thread section and in the elastic section. I used Dritz brand in white, but Gutermann sells it in colors!
Crank your tension dial up almost all the way. Mine was set to 8.
Use a long machine stitch. I used a stitch length of 4.
Sew your rows of stitching 1/2” to 1” apart. I eyeball mine, but you can of course mark them.
When sewing a rectangular shirred dress, it needs to measure 1.5 times your body’s circumference. So if your body is 40” around, your dress will be 60” around before shirring. You can either do your shirring on a 60” piece and then sew a back seam, or you can cut a front and back of 30” each, shirr each piece, then sew side seams.
Stretch the fabric as you go, from both the front and the back.
The steaming with the iron at the end is what shrinks it up into a complete, shirred piece!

Troubleshooting

In the video, I talk about how only one of my machines out of three could do the shirring properly. In the first case, my metal bobbin case was too tight and the elastic thread just couldn’t move through it. If that happens to you, you can turn the screw on your bobbin case just a tad to the left to loosen it up.

If you’re experiencing thread breakage, make sure your elastic thread is new and not old and brittle. Also, make sure you’re using the right needle for your fabric. Knit fabrics require ballpoint needles and tight weaves require sharps.

I hope this has been helpful! If you make a shirred dress, let me know! It’s something you should definitely try if you like the look of shirring. It’s not hard and it’s actually very forgiving. It’s also very easy to fit, since it’s so stretchy. You can get creative with the straps too. I’ve seen them with cute ties for straps and they’re even great strapless. You can also shirr the waistbands of beach pants, or skirts, or baby clothes. It’s just a handy skill to have in your arsenal.

For fun, here is the first shirred dress I made and the vintage 70’s pattern I used for it!