I am going to talk about how to gather fabric today!
As you know, Following the fashion trend, Almost every dress pattern calls for some gathering or ruffles. And Once you know how to do this, this will give you a whole new world of sewing opportunities.
There are several ways to gather and This week, I am going to show you my favorite way.
I prepared the body panel here. and I will make a ruffle with these. Usually, your pattern will tell you how long you need to cut your fabric when making a ruffle.
My sample fabric is this today, As you can see here.
The panel width is the same as the body. I have prepared 3 pcs of it. so This will be one and half times bigger than the body. This is the amount of the gathering I will make a sample.
I will take the 3 panels together and stitch the side seams So it will be a big circle like this and will finish the edges here.
I personally like to tidy up the edges before gathering to prevent fraying.
I will mark 4 points on the body. and the same as the skirt.
You just simply fold it in half matching the side seams to find the center front and center back.
I marked 1cm seam allowance here on the body & the skirt panel in blue.
I will stitch these 2 lines in pink.
This is a very traditional way and my favorite.
Set the machine to the longest length.
I will use colored thread for top and bottom for the sample. So the top thread will be dark red color and the bottom will be green like this.
I sew a straight line all the way down parallel to the edge of the fabric.
Make sure to leave long tails at the beginning and end.
Pls Do not back stitch on both ends.
I will tie up the top thread .
You know, there are to many threads here and i dont want to mess around it. So i will tie up just like this and cut the leftover thread.
And i will hold the fabric on and pull with the bottom thread from the other.gently.
Match the notches and I will pin it.
These notches will help you align your seam properly so that you achieve evenly distribute gathering
and I will change the stitch length to a normal setting and will sew the seam allowance .
I changed the thread color to black only for your reference.
Here the body and the skirt panel are together. I will remove the parallel baste stitches.
and that is it. 🥰
Well also i will show you another way. Easy and simple.
When I am lazy, I do a Single Thread with Tight Tension.
The blue is a seam allowance .
I will single stitch this pink line.
First, Set the machine for the longest length and for tension 9/10.
Sew the line with these settings and your fabric will gather on its own as you sew.
Isn’t it easy? and now, I will attach the ruffle to the body just like this.
However, This way is not the best way to make ruffles if you want to make it even and nice for when you want to control the amount of gathering. and this only works for certain machines and light fabrics.
Plus These are the samples I have made for your reference.
when the fabric for gathering is 1.5 times that of the body.
2 times of the body
3 times of the body.
Based on this, You can decide your ruffle amount.
Well, you can watch this process in more details from the video below. and also Don't forget to check out my other sewing videos. 😍 Thank you for checking my blog today.
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