14-Day Learn to Sew Series - Sewing Gathers

Another common design detail that you're going to come across when you're sewing is gathering. Hey you might see this for either home decor or for clothing. But sometimes you're being asked to gather the fabric into something. And so, let me show you a couple of easy ways to do this. So the first method that I'm going to teach you uses a plain straight stitch. So here I have my fabric that I'm going to gather. And this is just some quilting cotton. But I have my machine. I have a straight stitch foot on. And I'm going- the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to, well, number one, double check that I'm using a straight stitch, but I'm going to lengthen the stitch length. And I'm going to lengthen it quite a bit. When I say quite a bit, I'm going to lengthen it to as far as it'll go, which is 4.5. Every machine is a little different, so I just make it really long. The second thing that I'm going to do is, up here on the top of my machine, I'm going to loosen my stitch tension. And I'm going to loosen it clear down to like 1 1/2, or so. So I've loosened my stitch tension and I've lengthened my stitch. And I'm going to sew like that. So I'm just gonna go ahead and place it. So normally when you're doing a gathering stitch, you're going to be stitching basically along your seam line. So usually about 5/8th's of an inch. Maybe just inbound a tiny bit. And I'm not back stitching. Don't back stitch when you're gathering. Okay, so I'm just going to sew this. Usually goes kind of fast. And leave yourself some nice long thread tails. Okay, so long thread tails. So now, I'm going to take the bobbin thread, generally is the easiest, and hold onto my bobbin thread. Now I like to just, for a little security, on the other end from where I'm gathering, I will tie a knot. In my needle and bobbin threads. Because this can help keep me from accidentally pulling the threads through, which makes me very unhappy. But now, to gather it, I can just hold on to the bobbin thread and gather my fabric. Now, you're going to look at your pattern, of course, which will tell you how much you need to gather. But this is how you make ruffles and all kinds of details. So again, I tied a knot in the other end so I can gather this as much as I want, and you would do that according to your pattern. All right, so that's the easiest. So again we made it, used a long stitch length, and we loosened up the thread tension. In fact, I'm going to change my tension back just while I'm thinking about it, so I don't forget. 'Cause that would make the rest of my sewing look pretty icky. Okay, but sometimes you're doing gathering, and you have to gather a lot of fabric, or maybe the fabric is kind of heavy, and this technique isn't working for you. You're breaking threads, you're really frustrated. So I'll show you another way to do this. And for that, I'm actually gonna be using a zigzag stitch. So I'm gonna switch over to a zigzag foot. So switch to that. Put a zigzag foot on and I'm gonna select the zigzag, which on this machine, I'm gonna use 03. And I'm just gonna leave it set the way it is. I'm not gonna change the stitch length or anything. But I'm going to grab some heavy thread. Now, sometimes I'll even use, if it's really heavy fabric and I'm having to gather it up very, very tightly, I will actually use unwaxed dental floss for this because it is very strong. So what I'm going to do is, the goal is I'm going to zigzag over this thread, and then I use the thread to gather. So I'm place this on the machine. But when I do, I wanna make sure that this thread is laying under my foot. So the zigzag is gonna zig and zag to the left and right of this thread. So sometimes it's a little tricky to get it started. And if you have to, make your zigzag a little bit wider. So like for me, I'm making it kind of difficult for myself. I really think this would be easier if I made this wider. There we go! That gives me a little more room for error. So I'm just gonna zigzag over the top of my thread. All right. So here, I zigzagged over my thread, and now I can just use that thread to go ahead and gather up- And again, I might want to tie a knot in one end to keep myself from accidentally pulling it all the way through. But this is the best method to use for really heavy fabrics. And give yourself a wide enough zigzag to make sure that the, you don't actually catch the thread in it. Or as I said, I usually, if it's heavy fabric, if I'm using this technique, often times I will use dental floss. Unwaxed dental floss. 'Cause you want it to be able to slip. The waxed stuff is kind of sticky. But this just allows you to go ahead and again, make that gathering easy and that's better for the real heavy stuff. So either one of these techniques will work, and should make your job pretty easy to do. So good luck and enjoy gathering!