Gathers are small soft folds made by drawing fabric up on a line of hand or machine stitching. Gathers give a softness and fullness to garments and is a way to release a lot of fabric from a tighter area to a fuller area; for example a full skirt on a fitted waistband or yoke, a full top released from the neckline to go over the bust or a ruffled hem on a skirt or sleeve.
Patterns will tell you to gather one piece (say the skirt) into another piece (say the waistband) and because gathering is a basic technique they may assume you already know how. You know what they say about assuming so I’m not going to. Instead I’ll show you how easy it is just in case you missed that day in your 7th grade home ec class.
On the left a cute top pattern that shows gathering. On the right the pieces to the pattern; more specifically the shirt front and the shirt bib. The front is gathered into the bib. There are notches on both the front and the bib to show you where to gather the shirt and where the gathers will fit on the bib.
(The pattern’s bib has buttons. I’m ignoring the buttons for this example and will cut the bib as one piece. I will also add more fullness to the front by moving the pattern’s center front (CF) an inch to the left of the fold when I cut it out. In case you’re wondering why it looks a little different)
Transfer any notches from the pattern to your garment pieces. Some patterns use little circles to show where the gathering stops, starts, and fits. You can transfer these as circles too or snip a little notch in the seam allowance directly above the center of the circle.
My gathers lay over center front (CF) so I need to mark that too.
Set your machine to a straight stitch with the length about 3 to 4 cm per inch (a basting stitch). Finer fabrics will want a slightly shorter stitch for delicate gathers and thicker fabrics will need a longer stitch to be able to be gathered on the thread.
On the fabric to be gathered, start stitching at one notch and sew just inside the seam line (if your seam allowance is 5/8″ then sew just shy of 5/8″. If your seam allowance is 1/2″ then have the needle just shy of 1/2″). Do NOT back stitch or secure your stitch in any way.
Stop at the last notch (Do NOT back stitch) and when you clip the threads from the machine leave yourself a nice thread tail, about 4 to 5 inches.
Go back to the first notch and sew a second line of basting stitches 1/4″ in from the edge. You’re sewing in the seam allowance area.
Two rows of long stitches between the notches.
Turn the fabric so the bobbin threads are facing you. At either end of the rows of stitches grab the bobbin threads from the top and bottom rows (this is where it’s handy to have the long thread tails). Hold the bobbin threads and pull the fabric with your other hand away from the end you’re holding.
You will push the fabric toward the center of your gathered area. Depending on how large the area, and the volume of fabric, this may take awhile or it may be done in one pull. Don’t pull too hard though, you don’t want to break the thread.
Do the same to the other end. Eyeball the area these gathers are going to fit into. If you have to gather 12 inches into 8 inches it won’t be a lot of gathering. If 12 inches are suppose to fit into 5 inches keep gathering.
When the gathers look about equal in length to where they are going to be sewn you can stop gathering the fabric. Place a pin at each notch at end of the stitches on the gathered fabric.
Line the garment pieces up, matching the gathering notches and pin together at the two notches. If the fabrics do not line up between the notches adjust the length of the gathered fabric by either pulling the threads tighter to make more gathers and therefore shorter or push some of the gathers off the end of the stitches to make the piece longer. Pin at all notches if you have any more (like a center front or center back, or shoulder seam on a sleeve).
Anchor one end of the gathering threads so the gathers won’t slide off the threads. Anchor by wrapping the bobbin thread tails in a figure 8 movement around the pins.
Distribute the gathers so the fullness is even across the area. Anchor the bobbin threads at the other end. Check again that it looks even and adjust more if necessary.
Pin the gathers down and the rest of the seam beyond the notches too. Stitch the gathers down with a regular stitch length with what ever seam allowance the pattern calls for. Sometimes instructions recommend basting the gathers down first then checking that your seam looks good and finally stitching with a shorter length stitch on top of this basting stitch. I do that on sleeves.
Done. You may want to run a second stitch over or next to your first if there is a lot of fabric gathered or if the fabric gathered is heavy for reinforcement or if you didn’t first baste your seam together. If any of the gathering stitches show on the garment you can remove them. The gathers are sewn into the seam now so you can even trim the seam allowance and the gathers will not come out.
This example shows gathering on a curved seam but the technique is the same for a straight seam.
