Little Fish Romper + How to Shirr Fabric

This is hands-down the absolute cutest thing I’ve made for Audrey yet! I used the Baby Sunsuit tutorial from Made by Rae. All you need are your baby’s length and chest measurements to cut out 2 rectangular shaped pattern pieces.

If you’ve never tried shirring before, this romper is the perfect sewing project to try out that technique. This was the first outfit I’ve made with shirring, and now I can’t wait to make another. It took me while to get the hang of it, but I kept trying until I got it right! All the frustrations were worth it because the end result was the cutest romper ever! Keep reading for a tutorial on how to shirr fabric.

This project was actually several “firsts” for me. In addition to it being my first time shirring, it was also the first time I’ve installed snaps, and the first time I’ve made covered buttons. The snaps were pretty easy — you just have to be careful that you have them positioned correctly. The covered buttons were a piece of cake, and I love how the orange polka dots coordinate with the orange fish on the fabric.

What cute fabric huh? Believe it or not, this shirred romper was made from a sheet I found at the thrift store. I have a lot more of it left, so you’ll probably be seeing it transformed into another outfit at some point in the future.

How to Shirr Fabric

I thought I would share a shirring tutorial with all the tips I learned which will hopefully make your first experience with shirring a little less frustrating than mine was. Brother sewing machines are difficult to shirr on because of the drop-in bobbin design. It took me hours of trial and error to get it right (and a lot of elastic elastic thread!). I have a Brother SE400 but I think this process is similar for any machine with a drop-in bobbin.

Start by hand winding your elastic thread on the bobbin. Pull it taut as you go and try to keep even tension. Drop the bobbin in the bobbin case, and pull it through the thread guide as you normally do, making sure the elastic thread goes under the tension adjustment spring which is inside the bobbin case. Please see the picture below or consult your manual for the exact location of this spring.

If the elastic thread doesn’t catch under the spring, the tension will be too loose and you’ll wind up with a wavy looking piece of elastic on your fabric that won’t shirr up. Trust me, I know from experience. Also, leave a tail of elastic thread rather than cutting it with the razor at the end of the thread guide. This will make the next step easier when you have to manually pull up the elastic thread from the bobbin case.

Thread your top thread as you normally do. It’s very important to note that the elastic thread only goes in the bobbin and you use regular thread on the top. Turn the handwheel towards you to bring up the elastic thread. The top thread should catch it as shown below. See how the blue top thread is pulling the loop of elastic thread? Gently pull the top thread until the elastic thread comes up with it. This is why it’s helpful to leave a long tail of elastic thread so it’s long enough for you to grab the end.

Set your tension on 2 and your stitch width on 5. Now you’re ready to shirr!

Sew a straight line, back tacking at both ends. Don’t use your thread cutter at the end of the row! If you do, you’ll have to repeat the process of manually pulling up the elastic thread. Instead, lift the needle and pull your fabric to the left leaving a 3-4 inch tail before you snip the threads. Repeat for your desired number of rows, spacing them about 1/2 inch apart.

Now comes the really fun part! After you’ve completed your desired rows of shirring, use a very hot iron with lots of steam to press the rows with normal thread side up and the fabric will magically shrink up before your eyes! Cool huh?

Here’s a view of the front and back.