Back in 1978 I made 75 square dance dresses for a club. There were miles and miles of red ruffles, narrow ones for the sleeves and wide ones for the bottom of the skirts. I tore and tore and they were wonderful. I would make clips along the cut end of a bolt of fabric at the designated widths I needed, tear down about a foot, grab every other strip and hand it to a friend. We then walked away from each other the length of the room and then went again! I sat and hemmed them, she ruffled them, they went into baskets by size (2", 7", 9", etc.) and got applied to the skirts and sleeves. Took WAY less time then cutting, I can't even imagine doing it with scissors (this was before rotary cutters were common). I still rip and shock people all the time!