Hey all! Thought I’d share with you a lovely couture technique I learned this past semester called Fluting, which essentially means folding 1 1/2″ strips of bias cut fabric and layering them on top of each other to create a beautiful and unique looking texture. This technique looks particularly beautiful with chiffon, which is what we were working with. I used one printed chiffon and a matching solid crinkle chiffon.
Below are the cut bias strips, which we rolled out onto a paper towel roll to keep organized in between sewing. We cut about 1 yd of bias from each fabric. With chiffon, it works best to sandwich the fabric in between sheets of pattern paper, draw out your bias lines on the paper, and cut through all layers of fabric and paper. This keeps the chiffon from slipping and gives you easy bias lines to follow. See the diagram below the photo for how to draw out your bias lines.
Once the strips were cut, we hand sewed them on one by one to the front piece of our bodice. We marked out the design we wanted to follow, and lay the strips one on top of the other, with about a 1/4″ bit of each strip showing. I did a row of ruching (a gathered strip of bias) as the top row of my design to eliminate some of the fluting (its very tedious work).
Bellissimo!!!