Sewing 101 with Amanda, Gathering

Welcome to August 2011's Sewing 101 post! I am super excited to introduce you to Amanda, from The Modern Marigold.

Hello everyone! I get to share GATHERING with you today, and I am totally jazzed.

I use gathering on almost every skirt that I make, and I love subtly flirty look it adds to women's clothing.

Gathering isn't rocket science, but I'm going to show AMDAP (as much detail as possible)
so you can see every little trick there is to it. I hope you'll add your own tricks in the comments!

{clockwise, from top left}

1. Gather {hee hee} your supplies. I'm making a simple summer skirt *for me!* yay!
2. Set stitch width to 0 and stitch length as long as it will go.
3. Pull out a nice long tail to start with. USE GOOD THREAD, not the cheap stuff. You don't want those tails breaking on you later on!
4. Place the fabric you want to gather with the presser foot 1/4" from the edge. Do not backstitch.

                      
5. Keep a steady 1/4" from the edge, all the way down the piece of fabric. When you get to the end, don't backstitch, but pull another nice long tail.
6. Go back to the beginning of your first line of stitches. Run a second line, just like the first (nice long tails, no backstitching) exactly 1/4" from the first line. The more exact you can be, the better.
7. Now you have two lines of stitching with 4 threads sticking out at each end.

8 and 9. Take a look at both sides of your stitchery. The stitches on one side will probably be a bit looser (left) and the stitches on one side will probably be a bit tighter (right). For the next step, place the side with the looser stitches right side up.

10. On the left side of the fabric (or start on the right, it doesn't matter), pick up the 2 threads coming out of the top of the fabric. See how there are also 2 threads underneath the fabric? Leave those alone.
11. I like to fold my fabric in half and pull threads from both the left and right sides at once, just to save time. You don't have to do that -- you can work with one side at a time. Either way, puuuuullllll on those 2 (or 4, if you've folded your fabric) threads.

12. Don't worry about distributing the gathers just yet. Just pull the stitches, slide them along to make room for more, and pull some more.

13. Compare the piece you're gathering with the piece you're gathering it to (in this case, the white fabric with pink and green daisies). Keep gathering until the two pieces match in length.

14. Yay! They match.

15. Now distribute the gathers so that everything looks even and purty.

16. With the gathers at the top, place your two pieces of fabric right sides together. Pin if you like.
17. Adjust stitch length to whatever your normal stitch length is (I usually have mine on 3).
18. With the non-gathered fabric on top, sew both pieces together with a generous 1/4" seam allowance (you can backstitch at the ends this time). You want this line of stitching to fall between your two lines of gathering stitches.
19. If you didn't pin (I didn't), keep matching up the raw edges as you sew to ensure you have a nice straight seam.

20. Almost done! Look at the right side of your skirt (or whatever). Get out your seam ripper and remove the lower row of gathering stitches, 'cause you don't need them anymore.
21. Flip the skirt (or whatever) to the wrong side. To make a nice strong seam, zig-zag finish the raw edges together find my video tutorial here).

Add some elastic and -- woot! All done!

Thanks for having me over, Chris! Come by and say hello anytime!

Wasn't this fantastic? I had a hard time finding a simple tutorial on gathering the other day...and this just fits the bill! Thanks so very much, Amanda! Please hop on over and visit Amanda's yummy blog and etsy shop. She shares bits of family life, fun printables, and free tutorials. I found Amanda through her Pretty Blouse Pattern she shared with Sew Mama Sew in June. Thanks for tuning in, and if you would like to contribute to Sewing 101, just email me. burleyaudio AT gmail DOT com


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