I want to make a top, but the style that I want requires gathering....which I have absolutly no clue what so ever how to do......help.....
Do you have a serger? If not. You can gather by hand or with a machine. By hand you thread a needle. put it in the fabric with a knot at the place where you want to start the gather. Then go in and out of the fabir like this _ _ _ _ _ _ making wide enough space so you can push the fabric down as you sew, like putting a curtain on a curtain rod. This will cause the fabric to gather and you can adjust the gathered fabric. If you do it on a machine you set the machine to baste or adjust the length of your stich as long as you can. when you are done sewing your seam, leave enough thread for you to get a good hold on. Then when you are done hold the starting thread, and gently pull the threads from the end. This will allow you to slowly push the fabric and scrunch into a gather. If you have a serger, you can adjust the differential feed to 2.0 and this will automatically gather for you.
i don;t have a serger, but the hand and machine methods sound really simple. THANX! now i'm wondering how you would do that with an elastic...... i'm putting an empire waist on the shirt, and that's where I want it to gather......but inorder to get it on, it has to stretch........hummmm
it's even easier with elastic... Just cut the elastic the length you want it to be, pin it to one end of your fabric, and then pin it to the other end. Stretch it, pull it tight and pin in the middle, if the fabric is really long, pin it a couple more times in between the other pins. When you sew it, keep the elastic stretched between the pins, and when you let it go, the fabric will be gathered. (Use a small zig zag or elastic stitch, most machines have both.)
you could also just make a narrow casing along the seam and run the elastic through that, stitching it down on each end....might be a bit bulky for a shirt, though
