How to Gather Fabric When Sewing
ZJ HumbachIn this video, you will learn how to gather fabric for a sewing project. Gathering is a technique that is typically used when making ruffles. ZJ Humbach demonstrates a technique that she uses to make the painful task of gathering a bit easier by using waxed dental floss and a zigzag stitch on her sewing machine.
Gathering is a technique that you will use in selling whenever you want to create ruffles. And I want to show you two methods for creating gathers. The first one is the traditional way. And it involves making parallel lines of stitching. And you want to pull out your thread quite a ways, because as you gather, the thread will be caught up and you don't want to run out of thread in the middle of a long gather.
To do a gather, you are going to use a straight stitch and you are going to want to set it to the longest length that your machine allows and then you just simply. Come along and sew. And when you're done, go ahead and pull out a long length of thread and trim it. And then you're going to come back and make another row of gathering stitches. Oh, about a quarter to a half of an inch away, depending on what you're making.
And repeat the process. Cut a long length at one end you can tie off an end but the longer your stretch of gathers are the better it is to have access from both sides on a piece. This short, you probably can tie it off and just go from one end. But if you're doing yards and yards and yards, let's say for a curtain or tablecloth, or even a full skirt like a square dancing skirt, or the gathered skirt, tiered skirts that are popular today, you're going wanna keep your options open. So you're going to come and just take one level here.
You can kind of see where the bobbin thread is pulling up right there. And you're going to pull and gather across and you can start seeing where it's showing resistance. So if this thread should break, or if you just wanna start another line, that's why we have this second row of gathers that gathering stitch it's kind of your insurance. And as you go along, you can again, start from the other side, or you can actually come along with a pin and pull up some gathers in the middle. And then just divide in half and keep coming along with that pin and pulling up until you get the gathers that you want.
Ideally, you should be able to do it using just the thread rather than the pin. But you can see that it is a somewhat painful process and it really becomes painful when that thread breaks. As you gather, you want to keep the gathers even and not bunched. You don't want to get pleats. So you are going to have to work with it, to get it where you need it.
And you'll oftentimes see this for a sleeve. If you aren't using a casing, you might use it in a sleeve. It might be at the cuff. It could be at the top of the sleeve. It could be for a ruffle on a little girl dress, who knows?
But I'm gonna show you a method that I find to be a lot easier. And when I'm sewing, I don't like to be frustrated. So for this particular one I'm going to switch to a zigzag stitch. And I want to have it. Oh, wide enough so that when I use my secret weapon which is waxed dental floss, no it doesn't have to be peppermint, just plain old wax dental floss.
And we want it to be waxed because the wax is extremely strong. And you're going to again leave a nice tail, bring that tail and whole over to your sewing machine and you're going to have and you're going to center that for instance my foot here has a little dot that shows me center. So I can center it and then my zigzag stitch is going to go to either side of it. So I don't want that zigzag stitch to be tight, so I hold everything. And I don't want it to be a tight close together zigzag.
I don't want it to have some room here. And I'm going to just stitch all the way down here. And the big key is I don't want to stitch the dental floss because if you do, then it's not going to gather for you. and if you finding it's too tight or getting too close for comfort, then just go ahead and increase the width of your stitch. Nothing it says you can't.
Go ahead and take it off. Go ahead and leave yourself a long tail of the dental floss. And then you simply pull the dental floss all the way across. You might wanna put a node on one side to stop it but I think you can see that this is a lot easier method of creating my scatters than trying to work with two rows of stitches. And just like that I have gathers.
When I get it to the length that I want I can go ahead and tie it off or pin it and then adjust my little gathers to however much I want. And eureka, we're done.
Surprised someone of ZJ's calibre did not know to pull the BOBBIN thread, not the top thread - this makes gathering so much easier.
Dental floss is strong but won't gather if you accidentally stitch through it. Fishing line comes in different strengths, you don't have to worry about stitching through it and gathers nicely. When you use the double line of stitching method, gathering is easier if you reduce your thread tension and pull the bobbin threads.
I like the dental floss method, or any waxed, slippery cord/thread. I had tried the two row long stitches in the past and found it frustrating. When I use the dental floss method I use a Cording Foot and it helps with keeping the floss in place while doing the zigzag stitch. And when doing a gathered shirt this helps me save time and helps with keeping my frustration level down. ;)
I agree with Suzanne; the second line is not for backup in case the other one breaks, but to create a flat area between the parallel rows of stitches. If the upper thread tension is released slightly, the bobbin thread can be pulled easily. Also using a stronger thread on the bobbin helps. I use one line inside and the other outside the sew lines; this way the flat area in between is where I stitch the gathered piece to the flat piece. I later remove the gathering stitches that show on the right side. If you don't mind the puckered way one line of stitches create gathers, you can use elastic thread on the bobbin.
I don't think the way rosemary is gathering is the best. I agree with the 2 rows....but you should gather both rows at the same time by pulling on the both rows of thread at the same time...by doing this you have a flat area between the 2 rows to sew...but the secret is to pull on the 2 bottom threads because they will slide much easier than pulling on the top threads.
I use a similar method to the zigzag stitch using crochet thread this can even be re-used !! Also just to point out when using the traditional method with two rows of long stitches it is much easier to pull up if a)you use the bobbin thread to pull on and b) you sew the two rows closer together I use about an eighth inch and that works well over the years I have sewn hundreds of bridesmaid dresses with very full skirts and sometimes several rows of frills on there too! so I think I can say I have practised a bit!
Excellent tip with the dental floss.