How To Sew Ruffled Party Streamers

My kids love to hang streamers. Every birthday, holiday and party, they want to hang streamers all over the place! Since this element is so important to them, I like to mix up the kind of streamers we hang around the house. We’ve bought lots of different kinds, but I love these DIY hand-sewn ruffled streamers. It’s so easy to make these on your sewing machine, and I’m super excited to show you how to create them. I also have a tutorial for a felt circle garland that you can sew on your machine as well, and it's so cute. This is a fantastic beginner sewing project, so let’s get started. I’m including a quick video version and step-by-step photos. The video version shows you how I join the pieces as I sew.

Supplies and Tools:

• Tissue paper bundle
• Brother sewing machine

Begin by cutting your tissue paper into 2-4” strips. I took a stack of paper and cut it. You can use your rotary blade for this (but make sure to change the blade before you go back to fabric).

I cut it all up and then sewed, sewed, sewed!

You will need to adjust a couple of settings on your machine to get it to ruffle the tissue paper as you sew. The tension should be tightened to between 7-9. The higher the number the tighter the gathers.

You will also lengthen the stitch length to 5. This is as long as you can set it and will help gather up the tissue as well.

Place one piece of tissue under your needle and sew a bit to test the ruffles. Adjust your tension if needed.

Sew to almost the end of each strip, then place another piece at the end. I overlapped the two about an inch. Continue to sew.


Depending on your set up, you may be able to just keep sewing at a steady pace and add new pieces as you sew. This will make the project go quicker if you can set it up like this.

I love seeing the ruffles pile up behind my machine as I sew. It’s a very satisfying and quick sewing project.

When you get to the end of the last piece of tissue, cut the thread and remove from the machine.

Add a bit of glue on each end of the streamer to keep the stitches from tearing out of the paper.

I love the look of all the different tissue patterns together.

You can roll up the streamers to store until the next time you need them.