Ice Cream Social - Gathers, Yoke Lining and Edgestitching

Gathers, Yoke Lining and Edgestitching

Today, we're up to the part of the dress that many people fear the most, gathers. No need to panic, we're going to get through things together. We are only doing light gathers. It won't be that painful. We'll also talk about the yoke lining and edgestitching. Once we've finished these steps, you are almost done.

Did you notice that we're onto a new page of directions. We'll begin today at Page 3, column 1.

Gathers
Before we get going too far into gathers, I want to tell you right now that you'll make mistakes. You might need a seam ripper handy. Don't let this frustrate you. When I do gathers, I make mistakes and I use my seam ripper. It's all good stuff.

Sometimes when we look at blogs, we only see finished projects. We don't hear about the troubles and mistakes along the way. Because of this, we set the bar too high and put pressure on ourselves to get it right the first time. If these notions have settled in with you, push them aside right now.

To begin, we need to set our machines up for gathering stitches:
- Set your machine stitch to a very long stitch. On my Bernina I use length 4-5.
- Change your bobbin thread or top thread to a different color. It doesn't matter which one you change. No need to match your fabric. Trust me, this will help you later on in two different ways.

The two most important words to remember when making gathering stitches are heads and tails. My sewing instinct has me trimming threads instantly when I sew. I'm like a machine who automatically moves to the thread cutter when the line is completed. Lose this instinct. Make sure you leave very long heads and tails on your gathering stitch lines. Roughly 6" will do.

Now that you have different colour threads and know to leave heads and tails, we're ready to go with our gathering stitches. I generally do the front of the dress/tunic first and then come back later to do the back side of the garment.

Begin by sewing two vaguely parallel lines 3/8" and 5/8" from the top edge of the bodice front. Stop roughly 3/4" from the hemmed edge of the sleeve. You want a really long stitch length that can pull out easily.

If you've never gathered before, the concept is that you hold onto the bodice and gently pull the gathering threads tails to compress the fabric and add fullness. Then you can slide the fullness along to make the gathers even.

When you pull the threads, you want to pull threads from the same side of the garment (top threads or bottom threads, but not both). This is why I suggested changing the colour of your bobbin. In my example, the two bottom thread tails are both turquoise and I can quickly spot them and grab the right ones. If you've used the same colour, you might need to untangle the first. Pull gently to make sure you don't accidentally pull your gathering stitches completely out the other side. Always make sure you have long heads and tails.

To make sure gathers are even on my bodice. I start by pinning the very center of my bodice to my yoke. Then I make each section of gathers lining up the notches along the way. See illustration on directions. I pin at the center and at every notch point to hold the gathers in place. I keep my pins perpendicular to the direction I am sewing. When you get to the end of the bodice make sure you match up the hemmed sleeve edge with the edge of the yoke. Futz a bit with your gathers. Its best they are nice and smooth and even before sewing.

photo_chick84 has a great shot of her gathers on the flickr group. it also shows you exactly how the sleeves should meet the hem and a nice spacing of gathers. This is what we are aiming for!

(A word of warning: Someone put the bodice on backwards in these pictures... I'm not saying who, but I will confess that she's short and didn't realize her mistake until just now. She's made all of my dresses backwards apparently. Fortunately her process also works but is a lot more fiddly!)

Once you are generally happy with your gathers. We want to sew the yoke to the bodice. Return your machine to a regular length stitch and make sure your threads now properly match each other.

Using the folded yoke edge as a guide, sew just to the side of it being very careful not to catch the folded edge of the yoke while you sew. I use my edgestitch foot to line up the fabric and then put the needle just slightly to the right. If you don't have an edgestitch foot then try to sew as close as you can to the folded edge without catching it.

We need to try to prevent our gathers from folding on top of each other. To do so, gently hold/pull the bodice fabric perpendicular to the sewing direction outwards towards the left as you sew. The reason my thumb is in the picture isn't to show you that I'm too cool for manicures. Instead, it is to show you how I'm gently pulling the gathers out to the side of the machine. This prevents most of the bad folding and bunching in gathers. (Note: bodice deer fabric should be upside down at this point. don't let my photo confuse you!)

Ideally, your stitched line will end up right between your gathering lines, but I find with my dresses that's not always the case because my machine doesn't have marked 3/8" and 5/8" guides. My eyeball guessing is sometimes wrong.

Do not remove the gathering stitches yet.

Remove your yoke and bodice from the machine and flip it open. Look for any unusual gathers that are bulgy or lumpy. They should be obvious and the bodice won't hang very well. Here's an example of a bad folded lump in my dress:

When looking at the gathered side, these usually look like the fabric has folded on top of itself. Sometimes it will look like the lower parts of the bodice have been sucked up into the gathers. Fear not! We own a seam ripper and we aren't afraid to use it. Repeat after me, I am not afraid of my seam ripper.

Carefully remove the awkward gathers. Also remove an inch of stitching in front and behind it. Readjust your fabric in that area and try to smooth out your gathers. Sew that section again carefully holding the fabric away from the machine to prevent bunching.

Once you are happy with your gathers you can remove any visible gathering strings. This is the other reason I switch my bobbin thread. It helps me quickly spot which threads are gathering threads, so I know what to remove.

Press your seams towards the yoke. Be careful not to flatten your gathers. Flip the yoke over the gathered seam allowance. Pin in place. (If you've done your dress backwards like me, then you will need to transfer the pins to the front of the dress.) Edgestitch the yoke in place.

You don't need a fancy foot to edgestitch, but if you have one then you might be interested in my edgestitch foot tutorial yesterday. If you have no fancy feet, just use your eyeballs to line up the edges. My first machine had no fancy feet or functions. I feel like a better seamstress because I learned to sew on a basic machine. Rather than feeling hindered and left out, know that your skills are improving because you are working with the basics.

Repeat the process for the backside of the bodice.

When you get to the stage where you need to tuck your seam allowance into the yoke, you'll need to split the gathered seam allowance with a small V at the center back. (Again my deer fabric is upside down, apologies.). This is step 3 on page 3, column 2 and is very easy to miss. Clip close to the seam line, but do not clip it. This will allow you to tuck in the gathered seam allowance on either side of the center back.

Finagle your dress onto your machine. I needed to remove my sewing table for the smaller dress sizes. Then edgestitch in place.

Reinforce the center back as needed to prevent the raw edges from pulling out. I have a feeling mine looks slightly tidier because of the way I put the yoke on backwards. You may need to lockstitch the center back to prevent the raw edges from pulling out.

And that's it! Our yoke is attached to the bodice. It really looks like a garment now, doesn't it!

Again, apologies for the backwards bodice photos. I had a lightbulb moment as I was rereading the directions for this post. As I said, we all make mistakes. The problem with blogs is we assume that everyone else had an easier road to get to their final product. As you can see my road had bumps and sometimes potholes. I'm ok with that.

How are you doing? Don't forget to show us on the flickr group!