Sweet Little Ribbon Ruffled Booty!

A quick and easy way to add ruffles to bloomers without having to hem or serge the ruffles.

Me (about 2 years old)

Jilli Bean (17 months old)

This sweet little dress was crocheted for me by my Great Aunt Hilma.  It is absolutely adorable!  My mom used a robins egg blue cotton to make a slip for me to wear under it.  Fast forward 28+ years and it now fits my sweet Jilli Bean--she is taller than I was, so it is just the right length now (I will extend the life of the dress by adding leggings or tights when it gets cooler). 

She needed something to cover her bottom, so I had my mind set on making bloomers that matched the slip.  I was bummed to find that there was no solid color at Joann's that matched the slip, so I got plain white fabric.  I swung on over to the ribbon aisle and found a roll of satin wired ribbon that matched the slip perfectly (my sewing buddy had used ribbon for some bloomers and it was so quick and easy)!

I used the bloomer pattern from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby (I traced the pattern on paper and then cut them a little bit bigger as this pattern was for newborn or 6-12 months).  This pattern is great for adding ruffles as the seams are on the side--the my other bloomer patterns have a seam in the front and back.  I took the wire out of the ribbon, cut three pieces of ribbon 2.5 times the width of the bloomers and ran two rows of gathering stitches on each ribbon, gathered the ribbon and pinned it on the back of the bloomers and sewed the three rows of ruffles on.  I happened to have thread that matched the ribbon, so I used that for the top and white thread in the bobbin--you have to be careful when using a seam ripper on the satin ribbon as it can snag and damage the ribbon.  My thread matched so well that I cheated and left the gathering stitches in.  I followed the rest of the directions from the pattern for assembling the bloomers and was quite pleased with the result!