Learn how to sew fringe on a dress with this easy fringe dress refashion tutorial. If you have any holiday events coming up this month, this is a really easy dress refashion that is perfect for your holiday parties! A fringe dress would be perfect for a New Year’s Eve party. I thrifted this simple black dress for this refashion because I didn’t have a solid colored dress in my closet that would work. You can thrift a dress or use a dress you already have in your closet. I would recommend a solid color or a subtle pattern so that the fringe can be the focal point. The fringe trim would look good on lots of different silhouettes. The secret to this refashion is that the color of fringe should match or nicely contrast with the color of the dress. You want the fringe to look like it came with the dress instead of being added later. I chose black and black because they would be the easy to match. When choosing fringe you need to match the qualities of the fringe to the dress. If the dress does not stretch then you should use a non-stretch dress. I’m wearing these shoes that I added iron-on vinyl to.
Planning and choosing materials
Decide if you want the fringe to hang past the hem. I chose to have my fringe line up with the hem of the dress. Sew the fringe to the dress. If you are working with stretch then use a zigzag stitch. Sew on another row of fringe trim and overlap the row below by half. Sew on another row of fringe trim and overlap the row below by half. Add as many rows of fringe as you want. I added four rows of fringe. If you make a fringe dress using this tutorial, I’d love to see! I believe small sewing moments can create great joy. Find your own “right” way to sew.
Fringes refer to an ornamental border of threads left loose from a raveled edge or looped threads, cords, beads, threads, or tassels attached from a separate strip, used as a fabric trim. There are different types of fringes available in shops ready to be attached, but buying them is no fun when you can make them yourself. There is no one way to make these cute trims but nine. Here is a video on making a fringe trim from a sewing thread spool. You can use metallic thread, silk or rayon shiny thread as well as cotton thread for making your fringe - depends on the kind you want. Some fabric frays more than others.
Fringe construction techniques
To make this fringe, Make a single straight stitch across the fabric edge some 1/2 inches inside. You can also make this fringe with the hand embroidery technique. Cut a strip of leather or a fabric of about 4 inches or longer. Mark straight lines 1/4 inch apart with a scale. Make straight cuts till about 1/2 inch to the other edge with very sharp scissors. Loop fringes are looped at the base of the fringe. Step 1 Cut 6 strands of embroidery thread or yarn. Thread your needle with the floss. Bring the needle 1/2 inch up from the edge (at 1). Make this type of loop, and tacking stitches in a straight line along the edge. End the line with a few back stitches. Brush fringe is a cut fringe made of yarn. Make loop fringes as explained above with six or more strands of embroidery thread. Clip the end edge of the loops cutting all of them open. You can also individually cut the center of all loops. Bullion fringes are made of cord rather than yarn. To make this trim cut out a strip of interfacing the length and width of the trim you want.
I have used a card sheet, but interfacing is the right thing. Wrap the cord around. Place a 1/4 -1/2 inch ribbon along the top edge, and with a very small stitch length stitch the ribbon and the cord together. Cut out the lower edge of the cord. From the inside, cut out the interfacing piece closely near the stitch you have made. Make brush fringes that are about 4 inches - 8 inches long. Cut the edges evenly, as explained. Separate the strands of the thread of fringes and divide the fringe threads into two. With a single strand of thread, make a knot 3/4 - 1″ down in the middle of the two loops. Continue doing the same with all the loops. This is one of the best ways to make fringe trims - because knit never ravel.
You can just simply cut the fabric edges very thinly. A slight stretching of these fringes will make small curls, if that is the look you want. Beaded tassels can look as pretty as fringe trims. You have to work beautiful beads on needle and thread throughout the edge. As you make more things and develop more specific creative visions, it becomes very easy to imagine projects that require supplies that you simply can’t find anywhere. In my case, I wanted long fringe, more than a foot long. It’s not impossible to find, but it isn’t easy either. And when you do find it, the colors are limited and the price is high, especially as compared to the quality of the materials. It’s not the seller’s fault, specialty items come with a higher markup for good reason. But that doesn’t mean I have to buy it.
You can probably tell this is a pretty adaptable project. For string, polyester is what most fringe is made of. I’m using nylon because it looks good, comes in lots of colors, and, according to RIT dye can be dyed into even more colors. If this was a family holiday dress as opposed to a late bar dress I would have probably looked for silk to use. Nylon was created as a substitute for silk and is pretty good at it in the right circumstance. You can also go crazy on non-traditional fringe materials, it’s really about what look you want. To figure out your yardage you need the number of stitches per inch or centimeter and the length of fringe. You can see that your gauge and fringe length will be very important to how much string you need.
Cut some cardboard to the length(s) of fringe you want. I had a stack of 12×12 matte board pieces that I used - the two longest lengths required me to tape boards together. You could just as easily use the ruler on the side to wrap your fringe around as the boards, just find or make something the right size. You could also use a hairpin crochet method. Tape your waste string across the bottom of the board. It’s there to reign in your loops. Crochet to the end. IF THIS IS YOUR LAST ROW OF FRINGE turn around and do a row of single crochet. If you’re making another row of fringe, turn around and single crochet back. Leaving it on the board is easier if you have the option. If you’re switching cords finish this strand by pulling the spool through the loop. Repeat the same method as before, only this time you have to bring your string around the front and not get mixed up in the first row of fringe. When you’re done the strands might be a little crinkled or may not be laying right. Saturate it with water and lay it smoothly on a towel to dry and you should be able to work out most of the problems.
If you’ve used a synthetic (like the nylon) you can use heat to finish the edges. I don’t have a good action shot because it goes too fast. Basically, starting at the crocheted end I found a loop, slid my fingers down it so it stayed even, and pulled the loop over the tip as shown. It melted apart and sealed. Super awesome, but the downside is that this thing can burn you if you aren’t careful with it, and you really need ventilation because the melting fumes are pretty terrible. If you want sealed ends on a synthetic without a heat tool you can use the trick every mom of a kid in dance classes in the 80’s knew - use an open flame. Synthetics can be cut with scissors and then melted by hovering them over an open flame. For a project of this size you’ll want a candle. Practice a bunch before you try it on your fringe project, though. It works fast.
If you want a more conservative approach, you can simply cut the fringe. If your material doesn’t unravel or you don’t mind the unravel you’re done. If it does unravel and you don’t want it to then using Fray Check or a similar product should do the trick. I pinned my fringe down to cork, pulled the other layers out of the way using their ties, untied this layer, and then went fringe by fringe, finding the center bottom point on the loop and cutting it.
A word of warning - this fringe really needs to be securely fastened to a backing - a garment, a strip of fabric or ribbon, just something to stabilize it. With a bit of practice I was able to make a lot of fringe very quickly, especially when making shorter fringe. For my purpose I was able to make some very dramatic ombre fringe that was perfect for my project at about 20% of the cost of buying the equivalent in pre-made fringe, which wouldn’t have looked as cool. It’s heavy, cool, and swishy like the manufactured stuff, but custom fit to exactly what I needed.
Practical tailoring choices and dyeing tips
I am hot with a bout of Fringe Fever since I’ve been sewing on metres of fringe onto my Gia Slip Dress by Capsule Patterns in order to create a Halloween costume. This project was made possible by Rit Dye, whom I partnered up with for a Halloween Campaign on Instagram. The collaboration didn’t require me to write a blog post at all, so all the opinions stated here about the products are my own. The best way to dye synthetic fibres or materials is via the stovetop method, which keeps the dye vat at almost 100 degrees celsius for at least 30 minutes of dyeing. I did it anyway because I was afraid that if I used the All Purpose dyes, then it would be harder to match the turquoise shades between natural and synthetic materials in the outfit. In the end, I was surprised that the feathers actually absorbed the DyeMore colors very well. The feather on the far right was submerged for 30 minutes, while the left and middle feather was submerged for 5 minutes. The feather on the left is what it looks like when still wet, and the middle feather is the final color when it’s completely dry.
There was all this excitement with trying a new product, and the Rit DyeMore range means that it opens up all the possibilities of dyeing with synthetic fibres like polyester, nylon and plastic. That was a thrilling prospect. To add to the exhilaration of this new discovery, I was also playing with fringe and learning how to use it for the best swishy effect. It’s so fun to wear a fringe dress because of all the lovely movement that the fringe provides. Also, the fringe instantly brings glamour and drama to any outfit. Fringe comes in many different forms and lengths. Some are beaded strands, and some are bedazzled with sequins. However, most of them are made with polyester as the base material. They come in various lengths ranging from 5cm to 100cm, maybe more. The one that I used for my Flapper Girl Dress is 30cm tall, and I ordered it online from Aliexpress. One big piece of advice about working with fringe is to overestimate the length that you will need especially if you’re thinking about attaching fringe to the full length of the dress or top. I was lucky that I bought mine in bulk. They came in unbroken lengths of 10 metres, and I used it all for the Flapper Girl Dress.
The Flapper Girl costume was so fun to make that I started on another fringe project immediately after. The crop top was dyed in the Rit DyeMore Super Pink color, with no mixing of other colors, and I love how the shade of pink is soft but bright as well, with an undertone of purple. This top used up about 6 metres of a different fringe trim that is studded with sequins, and is 20cm tall. For both garments, I used fringe trims that were white, and dyed them the color I wanted after I sewed the fringes on. You don’t have to do it this way if you can’t be bothered with the extra step of dyeing. However, I find that it is difficult to find the right color of fringe trim that doesn’t look radioactive or too-too-glaringly bright. That is why I took the dyeing route. The other reason was that I was getting paid to dye it - ha!
A word of warning: if you want to dye your fringe, remember that there would be some shrinkage of the material when it is sitting in a hot dye vat. For this reason, perhaps it’ll be playing it safe to dye the fringe before sewing it on. This shrinkage happened to both my outfits, but I got lucky because I was half-anticipating that it would happen, and cut out my dress a little larger than my actual size to accommodate for any shrinkage that would occur. In addition, I reasoned that if it didn’t shrink, the dress would still fit OK with a little bit more give since flapper dresses in the 1920s tend to hang a bit looser on the body.
Both top and dress come from the same sewing pattern - the Gia Slip Top/Dress by Capsule Patterns. It’s a garment that is sewn on the bias, which makes it cling flatteringly on your body. I chose to make the size 4, and added ¼ inch to both side seams in case I needed some extra room to play with, and as I said, it worked out really well. However, if I didn’t have to dye the garment, I would stick with the pure size 4 sizing and not make any changes. Sizes for this pattern go from US size 2-14. The other modification that I did was to straighten out the shape of the back neckline from a V to a softly scooped line. This was done mainly to make sewing on the fringe easier. This was also the reason that I chose the straight neckline for the front. There is another view of the dress which has a V neckline in the front as well. The last modification I made has to do with changing the lengths of both top and dress with the lengths of the fringes in mind. For the dress, I shortened it to where my fingertips are touching my thighs; and the crop top was cut right where my waistline is. It’s also helpful to know that bias-cut dresses tend to hang a tad longer when you’re wearing it than when it’s lying flat.
Fabric choices, fit, and final adjustments
In addition, when I was sewing on the fringe, I had to stretch out the fabric some to follow the give of the dress. I did this for all the rows of fringe except for the one at the hem. The reason being that the hem will hang wavy - it’s part of the beauty of the bias cut. However, this waviness looks strange when there’s the braided cording of the fringe attached to it. That is why when I sewed the fringe onto the hem, I was doing my best not to stretch out the fabric at all. Of course, if you decide to use a slip dress that is cut on the grain, then you would be saved from the trickiest bit of this sewing project - which is trying to figure out how much of the bias-cut dress I should stretch out while sewing on the fringe. Another thing to keep in mind for a fringe dress is the choice of fabric. There’s a lot of weight added onto the dress when there’s 10 metres of fringe hanging off of it, so I knew that I needed a fabric that would be strong enough to hold up to the weight. But I also wanted something that wasn’t stiff, and had some drape and movement. I settled on a textured suiting fabric from Minerva which is of medium weight and of a polyester/lyocell blend. It says that there’s Elastane thrown into the mix, but I feel there’s very little elasticity in it.
Finally, I made a YouTube video which is basically a sewing tutorial on how to sew fringe onto a garment. I’m pretty sure that I can style up my pink fringe top into a Disco Queen Halloween costume as well, which means that I’ve already got 2 Halloween costumes lined up for this year. I hope this post is giving you the itch to make your own, because the best costumes are the ones we make ourselves. Throw some fringe on some little-loved garment that is in your closet and transform it into a dazzling costume. It doesn’t take up much time at all. The crop top that I made was sewn up in one morning - fringe and all. If I didn’t have to document the make with video, it would have taken less time as well. The big bonus is that I believe I’ve made 2 costumes that I would actually wear on non-Halloween days as well.
Defining fringe and choosing the right look
Fringe comes in many different forms and lengths. Some are beaded strands, and some are bedazzled with sequins. However, most of them are made with polyester as the base material. They come in various lengths ranging from 5cm to 100cm, maybe more. The one that I used for my Flapper Girl Dress is 30cm tall, and I ordered it online from Aliexpress. One big piece of advice about working with fringe is to overestimate the length that you will need especially if you’re thinking about attaching fringe to the full length of the dress or top. I was lucky that I bought mine in bulk. They came in unbroken lengths of 10 metres, and I used it all for the Flapper Girl Dress.
Conclusion and encouragement
That’s the essence of turning a simple dress into a swishy, glamorous fringe piece for holidays or any party. The best part is that fringe can be dyed or purchased in various shades to perfectly match or contrast with the base dress, creating a cohesive or dramatic look. The process is adaptable, forgiving, and rewarding for crafters at any skill level.