My style tends towards sleek, tailored clothing but this blouse with its many circular flounces was one I had to try. The inspiration is from Alexander McQueen’s RTW line and retailed for over $1000. Wonderful look for summer that I could definitely do for less.
I draped a slim fitting princess line top using my body double dress form. It extends to the high hip line here so I can play with the placement of the hem flounce.
An interesting technical point is that these are known as flounces, not circular ruffles. In the garment industry, a ruffle by definition has the excess fullness gathered into a seam while the fullness of a flounce comes from the curved flare of the fabric.
The flounce pattern is created by drawing concentric circles. The inner circle is attached to the garment.
Drafting the flounce does require some basic math and decisions about how full you want the flounce. The left diagram shows a flounce with an inner circle of 1 inch diameter and one inch wide flounce. The circumference of the inner circle is 3.14 inches which will be the length of the seam joining to the garment. The outer edge of the flounce will be 9.42 inches. Fullness is calculated as 9.42 divided by 3.14 equals 3 or 3:1 ratio. However, imagine that you need a 6 inch long flounce. Drawing a 2 inch diameter circle surrounded by a 4 inch diameter circle creates a flounce 6.28 inches long with an outer edge 12.56 inches long. Note that the fullness has changed from 3:1 to 2:1 (12.56 divided by 6.28). If the desired fullness is 3:1, then the flounce will need to be cut using two of the smaller circles and seaming them together.
I’ve drafted a 3 inch deep flounce for the lower edge of the blouse, cut a test from muslin and attached to the toile. To achieve 3:1 fullness, I’ll use four sections (two back and two front).
Drafting the flounces for the neckline and center front required more complicated methods. Flounces behave differently depending upon the seam they are attached to. Vertical hanging flounces cascade down in folds. The fullness of a flounce is increased when attached to a inside curve and decreased when attached to an outside curve. The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff is a wonderful resource which more fully explains these concepts.
The neckline is an outside curve. Therefore to maintain the same appearance of fullness, the flounce at the neck was drafted with 4:1 inner to outer ratio. The math can get complicated, especially when you need to consider the length of flounce needed, width AND fullness ratio desired plus adding seam allowances. Then compound all this with varying width flounces for the center front and armholes. I’ve devised a relatively simple way to draft all this.
Either buy a tablet of graph paper or print some out. There are free internet sources for printing all sizes of graph paper. I like Math-Drills.com . Search for graph paper and print out a few sheets of 1/4 inch size. Metric users try 0.5 cm; I found the 1 cm. size just a bit too large to produce smooth curves using my method.
Measure the length of the seam the flounce will be attached to. Measure the SEAM LINE, not the cut edge. All drafting is done referencing the seam line; seam allowances are added afterwards. I’ll show the back neck: seam line from CB to shoulder seam is 3.5 inches. 4:1 fullness is desired and 1.75 wide flounce so I’ll cut and tape together a strip of graph paper 1.75 inches by 14 inches (3.5 times 4).
Cut along every fourth line leaving a tiny bit attached at one long edge. If you cut through, it’s no problem to just tape it together. Overlap the sections so there are four blocks at one edge and one block at the other edge.
The inside edge won’t line up perfectly but I just eyeball it. You can also draw in a line to help. Tape the sections in place as you go. This is what the pattern will look like. It’s very clear that there is a 4:1 ratio of inner to outer length. Also it isn’t a complete circle which is good as there is space to add seam allowances.
The pattern can be cleaned up by using it as a gauge to draw circles with a compass. Use the end points on the outer circle and connect to the center for symmetrical seam lines. I find this much, much easier than trying to mathematically calculate the dimensions of the inner circle, outer circle, width of flounce, maintain fullness ratio. With all these variables, I wound up with a partial circle and calculating the percentage needed of such circles produces some dizzying math.
The graph paper method greatly simplifies creating the long cascading flounce along the center front. If you draft a flounce and trim off the outer edge to create a flounce narrower at one end, the proportion of fullness changes.
Here is a flounce which gets narrower at one end. I trimmed off the outer edge of a 3:1 circle. If you count the squares, it goes from a 3:1 fullness to a 2:1 fullness. This may be what you want, but what if you want to maintain the same fullness the entire length?
Here’s how I created the center front flounce. Measure from center front to the desired length. After some experimentation, I decided 3:1 was a good fullness. Create a strip of graph paper 3 times the finished length by the wider width. Draw a sloping line from wide point to narrow point.
Trim off the paper above the sloped line. Cut along every third square and overlap to create a curved pattern.
The pattern will spiral over itself. Keep going and let it overlap. It will be divided into sections later.
My front flounce needed to be divided into two sections to avoid the pieces overlapping. Deciding where to place the cuts is a trial and error process. You want a few seams as possible and the seams need to be placed where they are inconspicuous.
It may take several muslin trials to get seams where you want them. Trace off your master pattern so it is intact in case your first seams aren’t where you want them. Since the diameter of the circle is constantly changing along the length of the flounce the circles will turn into ellipses. Here is the lower section of my front flounce. I’ve left room for tiny seam allowances to join to the upper flounce section.
My pattern traced off to pattern paper. Label everything as the pieces will get VERY confusing. I also keep my graph paper models intact just in case I need them.
The armseye flounce is drafted in the same way. I did experiment with a 5:1 fullness but felt it too much and ultimately went back to the 3:1 proportion. Some experimentation is necessary as every flounce will behave differently depending on its width and placement. The fullness is removed under the arm at the side seam.
Since this design is symmetrical, the toile is only of the right side. I’ve also hemmed the center front flounce as the drape of flounces does change with the edge finish used. Drape flounces in a fabric similar to the fashion fabric as a silk chiffon will behave much differently than a crisp cotton. I will use a woven textured white cotton that looks almost the same on both sides as the wrong side of the fabric will show on this. Blouse is in production for the next post.