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Transcript:

Helen: We are recording today on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, including Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, and K’ómoks first nations.

Hello, and welcome to Love To Sew. I’m Helen, the designer behind Helen’s Closet Patterns and Cedar Quilt Co.

Caroline: And I’m Caroline, the owner of Blackbird Fabrics.

Helen: We’re two sewing buds who love to sew our own clothes and want to encourage you on your sewing journey, too.

Caroline: Join us for today’s topic: Gathers, Shirring, and Flounces.

Oh, my gosh. Happy Me Made May, everyone!

Helen: Ah! Happy Me Made May! I love this time of year for the weather, the Me Made May of it all, I mean, it’s great.

Caroline: I know. When I think about May I think about documenting handmade outfits and flowers.

Helen: Doesn’t get better than that.

Caroline: Doesn’t get better… If I can combine the two even better.

Helen: Outfits with flowers on them.

Caroline: Yeah. Or take some photos in front of a blooming plant…

Helen: Oh, yes!

Caroline: …of some kind.

Helen: For the first week, you get photos in front of blooming plants and for the rest of it you get bathroom selfies.

Caroline: Yeah. I’m excited though. I always feel so inspired during Me Made May…

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: …and I hope everyone has a great time, if you’re participating or not. It’s just a really fun and exciting time to be a part of the sewing community.

Helen: Yeah. And for anyone who doesn’t know what Me Made May is, it’s just when you wear and optionally share your me-made outfits online. But it can just be wearing them. And I think I’m just gonna try to get dressed for work every day and not wear sweatpants, even though my sweatpants are handmade.

Caroline: Yeah. You can have a sweatpant day once in a while…

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: …if they’re handmade.

Helen: Exactly.

Caroline: Yes. I’m very excited to see what all of the Birdies wear, and I’m gonna try to document a little bit. We’ll see what happens. Low pressure.

Helen: Well, we have a very timely episode this week because I feel like this time of year people are sewing all sorts of gathers and shirring and flounces, and we even have an appropriate listener feedback today from Rohini.

Caroline: “Just heard the quilting episode! When you mentioned there is no gathering in quilting, an image came to mind from Colette Wolff’s Fabric manipulation book that I have been perusing these days. Check those gathered blocks out! I think it’d be so fun to make it in a light-coloured fabric that showcases winding lanes and gathers in a quilt or maybe a smaller wall hanging.”

Helen: Oh, my gosh. I wanna interrupt Rohini’s email here for a second to describe what she’s talking about since you can’t see the cool picture that she sent. We’re gonna post it in the show notes. It’s an image from The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Collette Wolf, and it’s a closeup of patchwork made with white fabric.

The blocks are quarter-circle blocks, also called drunkard’s path blocks – but the fabric around the circle part is gathered, so it’s, kind of, tucking into that little quarter-circle. It looks really gorgeous. And the text on the page says “Part One: Controlled Crushing,” which is an amazing name for gathering, like, ten out of ten.

Caroline: I feel like we should rename this episode Controlled Crushing.

Helen: Controlled Crushing. Okay. Back to the email, Caroline.

Caroline: Rohini goes on to say, “I just tried quilting myself a few weeks ago out of necessity because I wanted to make a quilted housecoat and the fabric I purchased was only one yard. So I could either buy similar or contrasting fabric. And I thought, why don’t I try quilting? I quilted cotton and cupro remnants from another project in the same one inch diamond pattern. I only had enough to cut the left side and left arm, and voilà, it’s a housecoat.”

Rohini sent us a link to her Instagram, and the coat looks amazing. It’s a wrap-style cropped jacket that she drafted herself. Half of the jacket is a beautiful pre-quilted fabric in shades of grey and blue, and the other half is the white fabric that Rohini quilted herself. It looks amazing. I love how the fabrics cross over in the front. We’re gonna link this post in our show notes, and you can follow Rohini on Instagram @WhenSewingOnlySew.

And here is the last part of the email: “I very much felt in the zone while quilting. I’m planning to do the Cedar Quilt Co. placemats next, albeit in half size ‘cause my dining table is a small round.”

Helen: Ooh. Yay! I am so glad you’re gonna make the Playful Placemats. And customising your size is totally doable. In fact, we have a little tutorial on the Cedar Quilt Co. blog for making those eight-at-a-time half-square triangles, and there’s a handy table there to help you make squares anywhere from one inch all the way to six inches.

So you can make tiny placemats, or you could make huge blanket size placemats. I guess at that point it would just be a blanket. But hey, I don’t know how big your table is, but thank you so much for your great email Rohini. I, for one, am ready to do some gathered quilting. I honestly thought to myself when we were doing that episode, when we were like, there’s no gathering in quilting, I was like, I bet there is though, thinking to myself, like, someone’s gonna email us about this. And they did, and it’s great. So thank you, Rohini. And speaking of gathers, let’s get into this episode. I love it.

Caroline: GATHER ‘round, listeners. I’m SHIR you’re going to enjoy this episode.

Helen: Oh, Caroline. Those puns are terrible.

Caroline: Sorry, Helen, I didn’t mean to RUFFLE your feathers. Don’t FLOUNCE away.

Helen: No. Okay. Sidenote, I pronounce it sure-ing, and you pronounce it shear-ing.

Caroline: Oh.

Helen: Who’s right? I don’t know.

Caroline: Listen. Okay.

Helen: We have to do a little poll and see what our listeners think.

Caroline: You say sure-ing. I say shear-ing. You say to-mat-oh. I say toe-may-toe.

Helen: Yeah, let’s call the whole thing off. I don’t know. Nevermind. That’s it for today’s episode of Love to Sew.

Caroline: No, but seriously, it does feel like the perfect time of year to be tackling this topic. I know that I love sewing gathers, especially for summer. And spring and summer patterns often include these pretty details. So some examples of what you might see are maybe gathered tiers on a dress or a skirt, a shirred back on a top or dress, flounced sleeves, gathered puffy sleeves, a flounce at the curved hem of a wrap skirt, maybe some fine ruffles around the edge of a collar, or gathers above or below the chest for bust shaping. Really, there are so many ways that you can use these details in your makes.

Helen: Oh, the possibilities are endless, and you can add these details to patterns that don’t even have them, which is very exciting. And I wanted to mention that I’m actually working on a summer pattern right now that has gathered tiers and flounced sleeves…

Caroline: Ooh!

Helen: …so I’m super excited for that to come out, hopefully this June or July. Hopefully not August, but we’ll see.

Caroline: Who knows? I mean, a summer dress this summer, next summer.

Helen: Exactly.

Caroline: Yeah. Anytime. So in this episode, we’re gonna talk about the different methods you can use to gather your fabric, how to hack patterns to add gathered pieces like ruffles and tiers, and tips for great gathers.

Helen: And we’re also going to demystify the process of shirring. You can definitely do this. And finally, we’re gonna talk flounces: what they are, how to make them, and most importantly, how to sew that giant circular hem without tearing your house down in frustration.

Caroline: Yes! So important. Okay. So we do have a lot to cover in this episode, but I feel like we should kick it off as usual with talking about our personal love of this topic: gathers, shirring, and flounces. Helen, tell me what are some things that you’ve made with these details and what do you think of the process of gathering, shirring, or flouncing?

Helen: I love gathers. I’ve made lots of things with gathers. Early in my sewing days when I got back into indie sewing with indie patterns, I made the Alder Shirtdress and the Archer Shirt from Grainline, both of which have really neat gathered panel details. And I think that might have been, like, one of the first things I gathered when I got back into sewing.

And then the Roscoe Blouse, Caroline, you and I both had a, like, serious love affair with that pattern for a long time. Still do actually. I still wear my Roscoe Blouse all the time. That one’s really fun ‘cause you gather it, like, right into the bias finishing on the cuffs and the, and the neckline. I love that. And I made the Megan Nielsen Brumby Skirt, as well. That one gathers into the waistband.

And then I got into adding gathered tiers to everything. Like, it’s the easiest pattern hack ever. You can just add a gathered tier to a tank top or a dress. I even added gathered tiers to the York Pinafore pattern. Pretty much every pattern we’ve released, I’ve tried adding a gathered tier to it.

Caroline: Yup.

Helen: It always looks great. And then we released our March pattern, which is our pattern with the most gathering. It has a gathered skirt and gathered sleeves. And then I did a little Reynolds Top hack a couple summers ago that has a tiny little gathered ruffle just under the facing. It’s the cutest little thing. I honestly still haven’t tried shirring ,and I’ve not sewn very many flounces, but that is definitely changing this summer with the summer pattern that we’re working on. And I do love the look of shirring and flounces. I just don’t love the effort that it takes. Yeah.

Caroline: Yeah.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: Yeah. We’ll get into that a little bit later.

Helen: Yeah, exactly. How about you? I know you’re a gather fan.

Caroline: Oh, my gosh. I have made so many things with gathers over the years. I absolutely love them. I, kind of, feel like adding a gathered tier or, like, a gathered skirt to a pattern is basically my signature sewing move.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: I do it all the time. But I went to my closet to take a look at some of the things that I’ve made with gathers that are still on rotation. So my favourite March Dress, that’s your pattern, Helen, by the way, in a block print, I added an extra gathered tier, so I even added gather on top of the existing gathers because I wanted it to be a little bit longer.

The Closet Core Pauline Dress has gathered sleeves. It also has a gathered tier at the bottom of the skirt. And I’ve made two of these. I love hacking to add gathers. So the Wiksten Shift Top is a favourite pattern of mine, and I made a version in a block print where I added ruffles to the sleeve and the hem. And love that top. I wear it all the time. I, also, last summer, I hacked Helen’s Closet Orchard Dress. I added, like, a gathered skirt to it, so I, sort of, cut it off at the waist and added a gathered skirt.

Helen: Cute!

Caroline: That’s a fave, for sure. All of my gathered pieces are also my favourites. So what does that say? I don’t know. But, Christine Haynes Verano dress, I have a couple of those. Love the gathered tiers on that. And then, in terms of sure-ing or shear-ing, I did that for the first time last summer. And I’ll talk a little bit about that experience later when we get into shirring. But I made the Victory Patterns Sophia Dress. It was definitely a learning experience, so, excited to talk about that, but love that dress so much. And I, kind of, finished it late in the summer. It was August, so I didn’t have a chance to wear it very much. So I’m very excited to wear it this summer.

Helen: Ooh!

Caroline: And then one of my favourite skirts that I’ve made is the Style Arc Sorrento Skirt. It has really lovely flounces along the bottom, and I actually made this for Vancouver Frocktails in 2019, but I still wear this skirt all the time. It dresses up and down really well, and I wear it to my dance classes now with Shea and it’s, like, really twirly and fun and lovely and yeah, one of my favourites.

Helen: Yeah, I think flounces generally bring up images of flamenco dancers and things like that. Like, so beautiful.

Caroline: Totally. But yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily call, like, the process of gathering or shirring fun really in any way. But for me it’s, like, a means to an end, and it’s over with quick enough that it’s not, like, scarring, like, quilted garments are for me.

Helen: Oh, my gosh. I actually don’t mind the process of gathering. I find, like, sliding the fabric along the basting threads really satisfying and pulling the basting threads out afterwards really satisfying. But if you’re adding multiple tiers, it does get old.

Caroline: I think, also, like, the messiness of it stresses me out a little bit ‘cause you have so many loose threads everywhere because of the, when you’re pulling, you have these, like, long thread tails, and then, that you, kind of, don’t want to cut them until you’re finished, and then, you have to pull out the basting stitches, and there’s just, like, there’s a lot going on.

Helen: Yeah. That’s true.

Caroline: I like order, and I feel like gathering feels like a lot, but it’s totally worth it.

Helen: It is totally worth it, and it doesn’t need to be perfect because you’re literally putting little gathers and tucks in so you don’t have to worry about getting gathers and tucks in your seam.

Caroline: It’s so, so true. Yeah. It can hide all manner of sins.

Helen: Okay, let’s get into the process of gathering, and we’ve got some tips for you today to get those beautiful well-spaced out gatherers. Gathering is, of course, a way of creating small folds in fabric, and they’re a great way to create volume because you can attach a much longer piece of fabric to a smaller piece, and then, you get all of that beautiful volume that that larger piece of fabric offers.

Caroline: Yes, and there are a few different methods of gathering fabric. So once you’ve figured out your favourite method, you can ignore pattern instructions and just do the one that you like best.

Helen: The traditional method of gathering is to create lines of basting stitches, either by hand or by machine. The longer the stitch, the larger the gathers will be. Shorter stitches make for finer gathers. Using two or three rows of basting stitches will help the gathers to stand up and prevent the fabric from folding over when you make your final stitches. Some sewists like to take a risk and just go with one line of gathering s- or basting stitches.

Caroline: Ooh.

Helen: And I say, you know, if you get good results, more power to you. I’m a two girl. I rarely go for three because I feel like two is enough, but it really depends on the, like, precision that you’re after with your gathers. And I wanna say, too, that the stitch length that you choose can depend a lot on the fabric you’re working with.

If you go too short with your stitch length, you’re not gonna actually be able to gather the fabric. So do some tests and figure out what’s gonna work with the fabric you’re working with. If it’s really delicate, you might get away with a shorter stitch length. But yeah, heavier weight fabrics are gonna require that nice long stitch.

Caroline: And another thing to keep in mind is that you’re not locking those basting stitches. You’re not back stitching at the beginning and end of your seam. You wanna leave the tails long, and you’re gonna tie them off at one end of the fabric. And then, take all the bobbin threads at the unknotted side and gently pull them all at the same time to create the gathers.

You’re gonna keep gathering until the piece is the right length. And the gathers don’t have to be perfectly distributed at this point. Just get it to the right size. And if you made it too small, you can push some of the gatherers off of the untied edge to release them. Once the measurements are right, tie off the untied ends. And now it’s time to distribute the gatherers. So you can push and pull the gathers along the piece until it looks nice and even, and then you can pin the gathered piece to the piece you’re attaching it to and sew your final stitches.

I want to add that, like, doing just the one line of stitches for gathering s-, one of the things that stresses me out about that is that if you pull too hard at some point when you’re trying to distribute your gathers and you break your thread, everything comes apart and you have to start over.

Helen: Yeah, it’s true.

Caroline: So if you have two stitch lines, then you have a little bit more security there that if you break a thread, at least you have your extra stitch line.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: Even better if you do three lines of stitches. But yeah, that’s just something to keep in mind.

Helen: Yeah, it makes the whole process easier, I think, to do, too. And it doesn’t take that much longer to sew that extra line of basting stitches ‘cause you’re running it through the machine, and it’s going really fast ‘cause it’s really long stitch length…

Caroline: Yeah.

Helen: …so you can, kind of, power through. It doesn’t even need to be that straight…

Caroline: No.

Helen: …to be honest. So I think it’s totally worth it.

Caroline: And sometimes a pattern includes notches to help you with the distributing of your gathers, especially if it’s, like, a long piece that you’re attaching. So in this case, what you can do is pin your gathered piece to the piece you’re attaching it to at the notched points and then, distribute the gatherers evenly in between the notches.

And if I’m adding a gathered piece to something as, like, a hack, usually, I’m gonna add some notches at centre front and back, for example, to help me to have, like, even distribution of gathers.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: So it’s always good to have some notches along the way to help you or else you just have this big, long piece, and it’s, kind of, hard to make sure that everything looks even when you’re dealing with such a long piece.

Helen: Totally. I think that does help a lot, and it’s worth taking the time to distribute the gathers evenly because that is gonna end up with a much nicer looking finished product. It can feel like, I think, a part of the stress of gathering makes me always wanna, like, rush through it and just, like, get it attached so that I don’t, like, lose the gathers and, like, all these threads everywhere and everything. But just taking your time to distribute those gathers as evenly as you possibly can is gonna be worth it in the end.

Caroline: Yeah. Completely.

Helen: If you’re using a regular foot, you can face the gathered side down so that the feed dogs will help to ease everything in nicely. If you’re using a walking foot, you can face the gathered side either way. After you sew your final seam, you can check out your work to make sure it looks right. If there’s anything you’re unhappy with, now is the time to unpick the final stitch line and redo it.

And when you’re happy with your work, you can pull out your basting stitches. I think being unhappy with your gathers would mean, you know, maybe some tuck got a little carried away and went totally diagonally and, kind of, overlapped a bunch of the other gathers, and it’s just looking really obvious. You could just unpick that area and sew it again.

I, personally, like to sew with my gathered side up so I can distribute the gathers as I’m going. And sometimes they start getting a little bit, like, pushed towards you, and you wanna just, like, make sure they’re feeding under the machine. But I know a lot of sewists swear by putting them down because then the feed dogs do that work for you. So, I don’t know.

Caroline: It might depend on your machine and the fabric that you’re using, as well. But this method is really the tried and true method, and it might take longer than some of the alternative methods that we’re gonna talk about, especially if you make several rows of stitches. But it’s also gonna be the method that gives you the most control over your finished product.

I remember once, I think it was Seamwork, did a little article comparing what gathers looked like with one, two, or three rows of stitches and when you see it that way, it’s really easy to visualise, like, oh, when you do three rows of stitches, you’re getting really, really beautiful gathers, really even gathers.

But it is more work. So you, kind of, have to weigh that: your patience against how, how much you care about what the finished product will look like. Also, the, like, project itself, if it’s a printed summer-y dress that I’m gonna wear every day, it might not matter so much, like, if the gathers are perfectly distributed, but if it’s, like, a dress that I’m gonna wear to a special occasion that’s gonna be photographed and that I’m gonna be, you know, showing off, then maybe I’ll want my gathers to be more perfect, and I’ll do three rows.

Helen: Yeah. Or, like, the placement of the gathers. Like, if it’s up on your shoulder, it’s gonna be more obvious than down at your knees, right? So you might wanna do a little bit more effort if you’re doing something on the bodice versus on the lower half of your body. But one of the reasons I don’t do three lines of stitching typically is that that third line is usually right where you’re gonna be sewing. And I don’t wanna have the trouble of pulling out that line of basting stitches.

Caroline: Mm-hmm.

Helen: This is my reasoning.

Caroline: Oh, my gosh. Okay. I want, I also definitely want to acknowledge that it can be, like, so tedious sometimes to pull out those basting stitches because sometimes they get caught in the seamline. That’s an argument for being a little bit more accurate with your basting stitches being in a straight line and, like, let’s say you have a half-inch seam allowance. You want to do your basting stitches at three-eighths and five-eighths so that you’re not sewing right over your basting stitch…

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: …because that is so annoying to unpick. And that’s, like, just an argument for going slow and making sure that my seamline is just beside my basting line and not, sort of, overlapping or crisscrossing. That makes it a lot easier to pull out those basting stitches. And honestly, I don’t know about you, Helen, but if a basting stitch is, like, within the seam allowance and not showing on the right side of the garment, sometimes I just leave it in.

Helen: Oh, yeah. I just leave it in, too. That’s the, you, if you’re using a matching thread, then you’re probably never gonna see it. But it be, can be, kind of, annoying. And, like, even pulling out the ones that aren’t in the seam, sometimes they can get caught and you end up, like, sort of, yarding on your fabric a little bit. You’re like, ah, get out of there. And that can damage the fibres. So be careful with that.

If you’re encountering a lot of resistance when you’re pulling out those basting stitches, the best thing to do is to stop and get your seam ripper and just help it. You just, kind of, break it at a couple points, and then, you can get it…

Caroline: Oh, yeah.

Helen: …you can get it out more easily, but sometimes it comes out smoothly. And I think I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but that’s, like, one of my favourite things in sewing is when the basting stitches from gathering comes out in, like, one pull.

Caroline: Oh, my gosh. And you pull a long piece out, and it, like feels so good. The satisfaction.

Helen: Feels so good.

Caroline: And, oh, my gosh. I know.

Helen: And then you flip it over, and the other stitch line is still, kind of, like, just on top of the fabric…

Caroline: Oh, and then you just pull it and…

Helen: …it’s just barely in.

Caroline: …it just goes, boop.

Helen: Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

Caroline: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Oh, that’s a sewing win. That’s such a good feeling.

Helen: Oh, my gosh. Okay. There is an alternative method out there that a lot of people use, which is to sew zigzag stitches over some kind of cord, or dental floss is pretty popular. Supposedly, dental floss is easiest because it’s made to be super strong, and it glides smoothly, and it’s minty fresh. But the idea here is that you do a pretty wide zigzag over the cord without catching it into the stitches, and then, you can pull the cord like a drawstring to make gathers. Then, you sew your final stitches without catching that cord. That’s the tricky part. And after you’re done, you can just pull the cord or dental floss, out, and then, you have to unpick your zigzag stitches. I have not tried this, but I know you have, Caroline. So what’s up? How’d it go?

Caroline: I have tried this, and honestly, it didn’t save as much time as I thought it would. The actual gathering part went quickly, and I thought that the gathers that I achieved looked really, really nice. But the unpicking of the zigzag, Helen, took so long. And with the traditional method, you can pretty much just pull those long basting stitches out. I mean, we talked about the challenges of that a second ago, but usually, it can go pretty quickly.

But unpicking a zigzag is like unpicking overlocking stitches. Like, it’s so annoying. And then the zigzag gets caught in your final stitches. So you have to, kind of, just remove the one side, like, I don’t know. If there’s a trick to this, please somebody email us and let us know, and we’ll do a follow-up.

Helen: Right? Did Caroline do this wrong?

Caroline: Am I do-… Exactly. Did I miss something? Because I just wanted to pull my hair out when I was pulling those zigzags out. So, yeah.

Helen: The cord idea makes sense because I think you would get a really nice, even gather, and it would be, like, super well distributed and beautiful. But yeah, the un-, unpicking at the end, you lost me there.

Caroline: Yeah, because the little points of the zigzag end up sticking out. And if you sew next to the zigzag, I feel like you’re not catching that beautiful gather that you’ve, sort of, prepared. And you might end up with more pleats and folds and things. So anyways, if I’m missing something, let me know. But anyway, those are my thoughts.

Helen: I love it. Well, we mentioned overlocking, and if you have a serger, you can actually use that to gather. You need to turn up your stitch length all the way, set the differential feed ratio as high as possible, and then, increase the tension of both of the needle threads. And you want your final piece to end up smaller than the piece you’re attaching it to because then you can loosen the gathers.

But you can’t tighten them with this method. So you wanna make sure they’re nice and scrunched up. You’ll also have to test out the serger setting on scraps until you get the result that you’re looking for. So there’s a little bit of setup time here, and you wanna adjust your seam allowance from the standard five-eighths to three-eighths if you’re doing this on the serger. So keep that in mind. I’ve never tried this either, but it sounds like a fun and, like, fairly quick method once you get it set up.

Caroline: Yeah, I feel like this would work well if you’re maybe hacking something and you’re not as concerned about the gathers being exactly two times the length of the fabric that you’re attaching it to or something. And if you have some flexibility and you can maybe trim down that gathered panel after you’ve gathered it to make it fit. I feel like I would not love to try to adjust my settings to make it work if I was trying to be really exact with it. But I mean, it sounds like a cool method though. I would totally try it.

Helen: Yeah. I don’t like to adjust my serger settings period because I like them just the way they are, so I don’t wanna mess with the tension. But yeah, this would be interesting to experiment with. There’s also gathering feet that you can use on your machine, which I also haven’t tried.

Caroline: Yeah. This seems like an easy solution. You just put the foot on and go, right? But actually that is wrong. In order to make the right amount of gathers for your project, you’re gonna need to find the right combo of stitch length and tension setting. So longer stitches and higher tension make fuller gathers. Turn one or both of them down to get sparser gatherers.

And you’re gonna need to do some math to figure out the ratio of the smaller piece to the larger piece. So, for example, if a bodice waist seam is 50% smaller than a skirt waist seam, you’re gonna want to find the setting that makes your scraps 50% smaller. So you’ll need to measure the top edge of the scrap, do your test, and then, measure again and divide the after gathers measurement by the before gathers measurement until you get 0.5.

So again, you’re doing a lot of math calculating trial and error with this method. But if you know your machine and you’re gathering foot and you’ve done this a few times, I bet you it could be really, really useful.

Helen: Yeah. Or again, if you’re just gathering a piece that you’re gonna trim down to the correct size, then you don’t even need to do all that math.

Caroline: Okay. The final gathering method that we’re gonna cover is clear elastic. How does this one work? I’ve never done this before.

Helen: Okay, so you take a piece of clear elastic that’s the length you need for your final gathered piece, plus a little extra that you’ll use for handling. Then, you mark the length you need on your elastic so you know where your extra is at the beginning and the end. Then, quarter the elastic by making marks at the quarter, middle, and three-quarter marks.

Mark the quarter points of your fabric in the same way. You pin them together, and then, you use a straight stitch, locking it at the beginning. You sew the fabric to the elastic, stretching out the elastic so the fabric is nice and flat. And then as the fabric and elastic passes through and the elastic releases, it’s gonna create those nice even gathers.

After you’re done, you can tear away the elastic. There’s a bit of risk with this method because the elastic can stretch a bit when you sew it on. So if you do this method, you might want to make the elastic measurement a little smaller to compensate. I think this would take a little bit of practice, but with that clear elastic, if you sew, like, a pretty tight straight stitch, it basically punctures holes in the elastic, and then, you can rip it right off after.

Caroline: Are you basting the elastic on so that you can then tear it? I’ve just never torn elastic.

Helen: Yeah, exactly. Like, the stitches are puncturing the elastics, so it’s, kind of, losing a bit of its integrity…

Caroline: Okay.

Helen: …and then, when you go to rip it off, it’s, kind of, like, tearing off, like, paper after you sew paper. But again, it does take some practice, and of course, you can use, like, braided or knit elastic, as well, to create a gathered piece by sewing the fabric to the elastic, and then, the elastic is doing the gathering. So you can use that as a method, as well, depending on the pattern. But this is for if you wanna use elastic to create the gathers, but you don’t want the elastic to be in there afterwards.

Caroline: Right? Yeah. ‘Cause I imagine using clear elastic in gathering would work really well for, like, a knit garment if you wanna add a gathered tier, and then, you can just leave the elastic in there. But no, this is really cool. I wanna try this. I feel like ripping elastic would be really satisfying.

Helen: Right?

Caroline: Just rip it out.

Helen: More, more sewing ASMR.

Caroline: Okay. Before we move into our tips for making your gathers a-perfect, we’re gonna take a little sidebar and define a gathering-related term. Ruching is a, kind of, decorative gathering or pleating on an overlay or trim, and often, it’s two or more parallel lines of gathering.

You might have seen ruched swimsuit bottoms with gathering at both sides to create pretty folds over the belly area, or the bodice of a fancy dress might have several lines of ruching to create a pretty texture. Sometimes, ruching has complicated and precise folds, and other times, it’s simply just gathered.

Helen: Yeah, there’s lots of different definitions of ruching out there, and it’s, kind of, hard to tell the difference between ruching and gathering. And I think, in general, they can be a bit interchangeable. But when I think of ruching, I totally think of that classic side seam on a swimsuit, or maybe, like, the hem of a dress has, like, a little ruching at the bottom on the side to…

Caroline: Oh, yeah!

Helen: …kind of, pull up one little side. It can be a really nice detail at the front of a top, as well, or, like, a bralette with a little bit of ruching. Yeah, I mean, it is essentially a type of gathering, I believe.

Caroline: I’ve seen some really pretty, like, fancy dresses with, like, a panel in the bodice that’s ruched, maybe around the bust, to give a little bit of shaping or even just as decorative, kind of, a decorative detail. I think it could look really cool depending on the fabric.

But I’ve done some ruching, only on knits though, in the past. I made a swimsuit pattern for my mother-in-law, and it has this really lovely ruching at the centre front bust. And I actually also hacked, like, a gathered tier to make it, like, a little tankini top.

Helen: Ooh! Cute.

Caroline: So I feel like I get bonus points for ruching and gathering in one make. Thank you. But I also hacked some Virginia Leggings years ago to make them maternity friendly for my sister. So in this case, the ruching was along the side seam. Really classic place to have ruching on this, like, wide band that I added to the waist to accommodate her belly. So, yeah, ruching is fun. I feel like it can really add a little something to a project.

Helen: Totally. Nice little pattern hack that you can do pretty easily. Okay, let’s get into our tips for perfect gathers, if there is such a thing. If you have a long piece of fabric to gather, you may want to break your basting stitches into sections to prevent those threads from breaking when you start pulling them. It’s so frustrating. You start pulling if it breaks or you realise that you’ve actually pulled it out from the end that you put it in on, and you’ve just been, kind of, like, undoing it as you go along. So breaking it up into sections makes it more manageable, and it can prevent confusion.

Caroline: You can also change up your basting stitch length depending on your fabric. So super lightweight fabrics, like chiffon, can take smaller stitch length for finer gathers, while a mid-weight linen might need a longer stitch length. Don’t make your basting stitches too small though, because it could make your gathers harder to manipulate.

Helen mentioned this earlier, and it’s so true. You have to be careful. So three and a half millimetres is gonna be the shortest you’re gonna want to go when making basting stitches for gathering. Four and a half millimetres is a typical length for basting stitches on mid-weight fabrics.

Helen: And you can sew your basting stitches with contrast coloured thread. It makes taking out your basting stitches easier because you can see it, and as a bonus, it’s a great way to use that leftover thread. The only exception I would make is if you are actually sewing on top of your basting stitch, then you might wanna use a matching thread so that if it happens to still be in the seam, you’re not gonna notice it as much.

Caroline: Yes. And if you’re gathering a fabric that frays easily, you might wanna do something to protect your seam allowance. So there’s no way around it. You’re gonna be handling the fabric a lot as you get the gathers just right. And that’s a recipe for lots of fraying. So you can serge or zigzag over the edge to keep everything together. Or you can fuse a thin strip of interfacing along the edge.

Helen: Oh, so smart. Before you knot the ends of your basting threads, you can pull the top threads through to the back. Then, you can tie the threads in a knot, or you could secure them with a few vertical hand stitches.

There’s also a cool technique we saw on a Closet Core article about gathers. You can put a pin at the end, and then, wrap the threads around the pin, like a little figure eight to secure them so that they won’t go anywhere, but they’re still there if you need them, rather than trimming them off. And then the pin is easy to remove, and it keeps the fabric from collapsing between those lines of stitching.

Caroline: Yes, and you might wanna reduce your presser foot pressure so that your gatherers don’t get smooshed down too hard. So check out your machine’s manual for how to do this. But yeah, this could be a really good tip because gathers just don’t look as good when they’ve been smooshed.

Helen: Yeah, especially depending on the fabric. And you wanna go slowly with gathers and check on those gathers as you go. If there’s an uneven spot, you can pause and redistribute the gathers before you send that part through the machine. If you’re attaching a really heavy gathered piece, like a long skirt, you can add an extra line of stitches over the first line to reinforce it and just make sure it’s really on there.

Caroline: And when you press the seam after you sew and finish it, try to press only the seam allowance. Again, you don’t wanna crush the gathers you just created.

Helen: What was it at the beginning? Controlled crushing.

Caroline: Yeah. Controlled crushing.

Helen: Okay. We wanna make some pattern recommendations for y’all. We already mentioned the March Top and Dress by myself at Helen’s Closet has lots of lovely gathering at the sleeve caps and hems of those voluminous sleeves and at the waist for the skirt or peplum. Caroline, you and I have both made a March hack with an extra gathered tier at the hem, both in block prints, and I know you wear yours all the time. I do, too. It’s my favourite dress. It really works well in that lightweight fabric. It’s, kind of, got, like, cottage core cult vibes.

Caroline: I feel like the block prints are, like, made for gathers…

Helen: Yes!

Caroline: …like, they’re just so beautiful in a gathered garment. DIY Daisy incorporates gathers in a lot of her designs. She uses a lot of rectangles, so the gathers give her garments shape and interest. Her gathered rectangle dress uses gathers at the sides of the bodice for bust shaping instead of darts. And of course, it has a gathered skirt.

And her Rori Wrap Top is super cool and unique. It’s really hard to describe over audio, but I’m gonna try. It’s, kind of, like, a life jacket with all the buckles and straps undone. So there’s a back and two fronts, but there are no side seams. And there are ties where the side seams would normally be. And once you tie them up, you’re in, like, a cool wrap top. But the best part is the huge ruffles along the side edges that become amazing statement sleeves. There are free tutorials for both of these garments on the DIY Daisy website.

Helen: Ooh, I really wanna try this wrap top. It looks so cute.

Caroline: It’s so cute. I’ve had that one pinned for so long.

Helen: I could see you in that for sure. Another one that immediately came to mind when we started prepping for this episode is the Sage Brush Top by Friday Pattern Company. This one has a yoke over the shoulders. It ends in a really adorable ruffle and a gathered front. There’s also gathers at the sleeve caps and the hems of the puffy sleeves. I mean, it’s just gathers galore.

Caroline: Yes. And the Roscoe Blouse and Dress by True Bias. We’ve mentioned this one already. It has a gathered neck with ties that can be left open or tied closed, and it has a really cute drop waist gathered skirt. This one is super versatile, very hackable to add, like, extra tears to the skirt or cut it off at the waist. Like, there’s so much you can do with this one.

Helen: And lastly, the Polly Blouse and Dress from Daisy Chain Patterns features an abundance of gathers and ruffles. They describe it as: that charming children’s dress you wish came in your size. And it’s so accurate. This would be a great one if you wanna do a ton of gathering.

Caroline: Yeah. I love this one too ‘cause they, kind of, call it a choose your own adventure pattern. They have a bunch of different sleeve options, bodice options, neckline options, different ruffles you can add. And you can, sort of, mix and match to make it as ruffle-y or as simple as you want. And the puffy sleeves are just, like, maximum cream puff vibes.

Helen: Aw. Love it. I’m so into it.

Caroline: Also, would be amazing in a block print. Just saying. Love our block print so much. Okay, it is shirring time.

Helen: So shirring is made by sewing parallel lines of stitches with just all-purpose thread as the top thread, and then special elastic thread in the bobbin. And this creates a really stretchy gathered fabric. Shirring is incredibly popular right now. It’s, kind of, timeless actually. I feel like it’s been around for a long time.

Historical garments have, like, this kind of detailing on them. Probably not made with elastic thread, but similar kind of look, and you definitely see it around a lot right now. It’s nice because it makes clothes look fitted, but they’re super stretchy, so they’re very comfortable.

Caroline: Yeah, it’s great for sewing if your, like, weight fluctuates or something and you want something with a little bit more flexibility in the fit. So here are some ways that we’ve seen shirring used. You can get shirred panels at the backs of tops or dresses, shirring all the way around the bodice of a dress or top. These are tight enough that you could even go strapless if you want, but you can absolutely add straps or sleeves, too. Shirred waistbands for skirts and lightweight tropical-style pants. You can do a band of shirring to cinch in the waist of a blouse-y top or dress, or a few rows of shirring to cinch in a sleeve near the hem is also super cute.

Helen: Ooh. Okay. What kind of fabrics would you say work best for shirring? Caroline?

Caroline: So the best fabrics are definitely lightweight wovens. The elastic thread is gonna have difficulty pulling heavier fabrics together. So you wanna go with fabrics like lawns, voiles, double gauze and single gauze, challis, seersucker. You could do a poplin, cotton batiste. Lots of options, but you wanna keep it lightweight.

And I would also try to go with something that’s a little bit more opaque because you’re gonna see, like, the elastic through if it’s too sheer. Or go with, like, an elastic that, sort of, matches to make sure that you won’t see it through if you’re going with something a little bit more sheer.

Helen: Don’t go sheer with your shirring. Got it.

Caroline: Yeah.

Helen: Okay. Here is our guide to shirring. You’re gonna wanna choose all-purpose top thread that matches your fabric and then that elastic thread for your bobbin. The kind, that, of thread that you’re looking for is a rubber thread that’s covered with cotton. It’s also called shirring elastic.

You’ll need to wind your bobbin by hand when you’re using this type of elastic thread. Whether or not you stretch the elastic as you wind the bobbin depends on your machine. You can try out a bobbin of barely stretched elastic and a bobbin of very stretched elastic on some scraps and just see how things go.

Shirring is one of those things that I think requires a little bit of setup and practice and just getting the settings right before you can really get into it. You’re gonna wanna test out a few different things before you start shirring on your garment pieces. You’re probably gonna wanna increase your stitch length a bit.

Elisalex from By Hand London recommends a 3.5 millimetre. You ca- also probably want to increase your tension a little bit. Your goal is to get a sample that shrinks the fabric by about 50% when you sew shirring lines across it. Keep in mind that you have to sew five or six rows to get a good idea of how much the shirring will gather the fabric.

It will look less gathered with only a few rows. And after you finish sewing your rows, you can hold a hot steam iron about an inch above your fabric and steam it and they’ll tighten up even more and, kind of, take out some of those imperfections.

Caroline: It’s pretty magical actually. After you do the shearing stitch lines and put some hot steam on it, they just like…

Helen: Ooh. Cool!

Caroline: …they tighten up, and they look really, really good. So don’t be discouraged if your shirring is looking a little wavy or wonky. An iron can really, really help that. I also have a tip I want to add because you’re going to be hand winding your bobbins with that thread. I would say to wind more bobbins than you think you’re going to need. Not a lot of thread fits on these bobbins, so you wanna make more than you need because when you’re winding them all at once, you’re gonna have a better chance of having even tension from bobbin to bobbin.

If you do it one at a time, you might forget how much tension you used the first time. And it should be consistent bobbin to bobbin ‘cause that will affect how much your fabric gathers or shirrs as you sew. I definitely made this mistake where I didn’t do enough bobbins, I didn’t prep enough bobbins, and then I was like, wait, how much was I stretching this? And the whole thing is, is, it’s a little stressful. I’ll say that.

Helen: Yeah, I mean, I want you to elaborate like, was it as hard as I think it is?

Caroline: It took me, like, I, okay, so I did a bunch of tests. I was like, yes, I’m excited. This is gonna work. And then when I actually went to sew, it was really hard to keep my stitch lines even. And I think one of the mistakes I made was thinking that I could use my presser foot as a guide when I was sewing my shirring lines instead of actually marking each line because it was quite, like, a large bodice piece that I was trying to shirr.

And it’s just really hard because once your piece starts to gather, it’s hard to then sew a line next to it because the gathering, kind of, pulls the fabric in. And I ended up with a lot of, kind of, wavy lines that just didn’t look even. So I actually recut and restarted my bodice after my first try.

But yeah, we’re gonna talk about it in a second. But definitely marking those stitch lines is something that I would recommend unless you’re really confident and you’ve done it a bunch. Because it really, really helps to keep things even.

Helen: Yeah, that’s totally a point in favour of doing a test, as well, which is basically what you ended up doing because you, kind of, scrapped that piece and started over, and you learned a lot from that first test. So there.

Caroline: I totally did. I totally did. Okay. So if you try out different levels of stretch on the bobbin, a longer stitch length, and a higher tension level and you’re still not getting the results you want, you may want to increase your bobbin tension. And you can do this by turning a screw on your bobbin case.

Even a quarter turn can make a big difference. Keep track of the changes you make so that you can change it back after you’re done with your shirring. Always be careful when you’re adjusting this little screw.

Helen: Yeah, usually I’m the one who reads the part about the bobbin screw…

Caroline: I know!

Helen: …‘cause I know that you’re not a fan of this.

Caroline: I’m Team Don’t Touch The Screw.

Helen: But if you, if you’re looking for those results, sometimes you gotta touch the screw.

Caroline: Totally, totally.

Helen: You can shirr before or after you construct your garment. If the seams are already sewn, it’s easier to make sure the shirring lines match. However, you will have to do a little extra work to make it look neat instead of backstitching. To lock the stitch at the beginning and end, you’re gonna wanna pull your threads to the wrong side and knot them off.

The nice thing about sewing the seams after you shirr is that you can just backstitch at the beginning and end. It doesn’t matter if it’s neat because it’s within the seam allowance anyway, and as Caroline pointed out, if for some reason it starts going awry and you’re not happy with the result, it’s a lot easier to just recut that piece and try again.

Caroline: Absolutely. I would always opt for shirring before I assemble my garment if it’s possible with the construction of the garment.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: Yeah. Okay. So mark your shirring lines, if you want them to be anything other than a third of an inch apart. You can probably get away with not marking them if you could use the width of your machine’s foot to measure the distance between the lines. But as I mentioned, that can get a little tricksy, especially if it’s your first time shirring. I would totally recommend marking your lines with something that’s gonna disappear later, or even a chalk pen or marker. Just mark your lines. It’s gonna make your life so much easier.

Helen: Mark your lines no matter what, by the sound of it. Makes total sense because how are you supposed to line up the edge of your foot with something that’s already all gathered and bumpy? Like, it’s not gonna happen.

Caroline: You, kind of, have to, like, stretch it, but then, yeah, it just doesn’t work as well. It just doesn’t work as well.

Helen: You can change up the distances between your shirred lines, as well. Like, you could do a couple of inches of lines, a third of an inch apart, and then leave a three quarter inch gap before starting a couple more inches of close together lines so you could create different patterns that look really interesting with shirring. You don’t have to do all evenly spaced lines. I think that’s pretty cool.

Caroline: Yes. And you wanna gently stretch the fabric as it goes through your machine so that you’re sewing over flat fabric.

Helen: Check on your bobbin every few lines to make sure you have enough thread in there to make it across to the other side. You do not wanna be running out in the middle of your seam.

Caroline: Yes. But if you do, that’s okay. You can still continue. You just, kind of, finish off wherever your bobbin thread, and then, you can start back a few inches, and then, you can, kind of, like, knot your elastics together.

Helen: Oh, nice.

Caroline; I definitely had to do that a couple times, but way, way easier if you start and stop with the same bobbin thread. And then, when you put in a new bobbin, you wanna pull up the bobbin thread before you start sewing. So here’s how you do that. You turn the hand wheel towards you so that the needle goes down and back up and gently pull on the top thread. It should pull up a loop of the bobbin thread, and then, you can use a pin to gently pull the loop up.

Helen: And you wanna take your time with shirring. This see-, probably seems obvious. If you’re working with all of these gatherers and this elastic thread. If you sew a line of shirring too quickly. Also, the top thread may have a hard time picking up the bobbin thread on every stitch, and you don’t wanna get those skipped stitches. So yeah, take your time. Take breathers. Caroline, did you manage to finish your shirred panel in one sewing session, or did you have to do it over multiple days?

Caroline: I think I did it over multiple days. But I think I probably could have done it in one session.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: It was probably because I had, like, had a failure and had to restart and I was like, I need a breather. But yeah, it does help to do it all in one session because then you’re just, like, remembering the tension that you had on your machine and the tension that you used to wind your bobbin, in case you need to wind another bobbin, like, it’s all, kind of, fresh on your mind. Definitely takes a minute to remember how to shirr when you come back to it.

Helen: Yeah, totally. I feel like with shirring, too, like, the end result is this, kind of, bumpy shirt situation that you can’t really see the lines of stitching that clearly. Like, it doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s gonna hide a lot of the flaws.

Caroline: Yeah, it definitely doesn’t need to be perfect. so that is how you “shear” or “sure.” But we also wanna touch on faux shirring, which is a technique that gives a shirred look without using elastic thread. And this works best for back panels or waistbands. The elastic is gonna be too firm to give a good result on a full bodice.

But basically what you do is you layer a lightweight fabric with the garment fabric, and sew a bunch of small channels. For quarter inch elastic, you want to sew channels a third of an inch apart, and then, thread your elastic through all of those channels. And you can secure them at the sides with pins or safety pins, and then, you sew down each side of the panel within the seam allowance to secure the elastic to the fabric, and then, you sew that panel into your garment.

I think this is a really good option if you wanna sew a pattern that has shirred panel, but you have issues getting good results with shirring on your machine. It could also be a way to get a firmer hold and more support than shirring normally gives. It also can have, like, a more substantial look. So I feel, like, with a slightly heavier fabric, like, I’m thinking if I were doing a shirred panel with like a mid-weight linen, I would totally use this method ‘cause it would just, kind of, give me a little bit more control and it would almost, like, weight-wise balance better with the fabric.

Helen: Yeah. Yeah, totally. I think this could be really cute. I’m imagining, like, the back of a, a dress that you just wanna, wanna, like, cinch in. You could do a few lines of this quarter inch elastic in these channels. It would look really great.

Caroline: And way less, like, question mark of, like, is your machine gonna work or not work with it? No fiddly hand winding of your bobbin. You just cut the elastics to the width that you need and you’re sewing some channels, and then, you can go with it. So I feel like this is a really, really great way to get that look if you’re a little bit, you know, intimidated or just not on board to do shirring with the elastic bobbin.

Helen: Well, yeah, or you can’t even get elastic thread, like, maybe it’s something that you’re not able to acquire. But quarter inch elastic might be more common. Another thing we wanted to touch on is smocking because smocking and shirring sometimes get confused.

Smocking is a traditional embroidery technique that’s used to gather fabric. It’s stretchy, even though it doesn’t use elastic thread. It’s pretty magical. We don’t have enough time to cover smocking in this episode. We’re gonna have to explore that one more in the future, but that’s the main difference. Shirring uses elastic thread. Smocking doesn’t. And then, I think aesthetically they look quite different, as well. Definitely look up some pictures of smocking. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Caroline: It’s so cool. Okay, there are a few patterns we wanted to mention to get you started with shirring. So, By Hand London has an amazing and free tutorial for a sundress with a shirred bodice and voluminous sleeves. And this is in a story highlight on their Instagram, it’s called DIY Shirred Dress. And we’re gonna make sure to link that in our show notes along with all of these great patterns.

Helen: Victory Patterns has a couple of patterns that feature shirring, and they have some resources on their website, as well, about it. The Sophia Dress and Top that Caroline has made has that shirred bodice and a couple of sleeve choices.

I like that the flutter sleeve option has a bit more fabric on the shoulder. You know, sometimes the neck on shirred dresses is super wide, and it’s hard to wear a regular bra without it showing, but I like that these sleeves bring the neckline in a little bit so it’s easier to wear with a bra.

Victory Patterns also has the Rowena Jumpsuit and Pants, which has a shirred waistband. The jumpsuit has a drapey cross front and wide pants, and it cinches at the waist with those lines of shirring. And both the jumpsuit and the pants would make gorgeous evening wear for hot weather and fancy fabrics, or they’d be great to wear on the beach in, like, a rayon or a really soft cotton. Absolutely love the look of these pants. I bet they’re so comfy.

Caroline: Yes. And then the Sundaze Dress by Les Perlines is a romantic dress with a shirred back panel. It has a gathered bust and an a-line skirt. This dress looks like it came straight from Reformation. Les Perlines’ patterns are on trend without feeling trendy. I love these patterns, and this is such a cute dress. I totally wanna make it this summer.

Helen: Oh, the Sundaze dress. I feel like it has, like, a lot of, like, bust emphasis in a really beautiful way.

Caroline: Yeah. Totally.

Helen: So cute.

Caroline: Finally, we’re gonna talk about flounces and ruffles. So here’s the difference between flounces and ruffles, even though they’re often used interchangeably. Both are pieces of fabric that are added to a garment for decoration. A ruffle is gathered at the top, and a flounce is smooth at the top and builds in fullness as it goes towards the hem.

Helen: Yes. Let’s talk about flounces first. The pattern pieces for flounces, I think, are the coolest looking pattern pieces out there. They can look like semi-circles or circles, or like a donut shape, or even like a little curly cue, or like, kind of, like a horn shape, like a curled horn, like a cinnamon bun. I don’t know.

So many different ways to describe these pattern pieces, and they’re fun to work with because you don’t often get to cut out, kind of, these wild shapes that are often seen flounces. So when you attach the rounded edge of a flounce to the less rounded garment piece, the hem of the flounce falls in this really lovely fluttery way.

This is partly because there’s more fabric at the hem than at the seam point. So it adds that fullness. And it’s also because flounces use the bias of the fabric, which falls really beautifully. So that’s part of the drama and the romance.

Caroline: Yeah. You can think of flounces as, like, little circle skirts that you can add to the edges of your garments, and they look really beautiful at the hem of a skirt or, like, a bell sleeve. You can even add flounces to straight pieces, like down the front of a shirt, and they become these beautiful cascading folds.

Helen: Ooh, yes. I forgot about cascading folds.

Caroline: Come on! Cascading folds!

Helen: There is a post on The Shapes of Fabric called “Flounce Constructions Revealed” that shows a bunch of different flounce pattern methods and the kinds of flounces that they make. It’s a great way to get a handle on how flounces work and what they can create.

Caroline: And the hardest thing about sewing flounces is the hemming. Circular hems are no joke. So with some flounces, both the right and wrong sides are visible because of the way the fabric falls. Obviously, in this case, it’s a good idea to choose a fabric that looks nice on both sides, and the hem is gonna need to be neat, as well.

We like this method for hemming this kind of flounce. So you’re gonna sew a line a quarter of an inch away from the raw edge of the fabric. Use that line as a guide and press the raw edge up, and now, use the raw edge as a guide to press the hem up again. And then you can use a really steamy iron if your fabric can handle it, to sort of press that in place, and then, pin and sew that hem. So using that stitch line as a guide to create that perfect, like, quarter inch fold or eighth of an inch fold is a great way to go.

Helen: Definitely. And if you really like hand sewing or you’re working on a super special piece, you could do a hand rolled hem. This is, kind of, a magical hand stitch that rolls up as you sew it. It’s the standard for silk scarves because it’s very tiny and delicate, and it would work well for flounces because it only uses a quarter inch of fabric, but it completely encloses the raw edge.

The deeper the hem on a circular piece, the more difficult it gets to ease in all that extra fabric without getting any tucks. So we’ll link up a hand rolled hem stitch tutorial for you in the show notes. I think it would be nearly impossible to describe verbally. You really need to see it to believe it, but there’s this beautiful moment where you pull on the thread and the fabric just, like, whoop, whoop, rolls up, and you feel like a magician.

Caroline: Yes. And if the hem is not gonna be visible, you could do a single hem. You can finish the raw edge with a serger or narrow zigzag, and then, turn it up and stitch the hem down, and you’re done. This method is nice because it’s gonna preserve a lot of the floatiness of the fabric, which is great for flounces.

Helen: Yeah, and if you do end up getting a few tucks in your flounce, I wouldn’t worry so much about it, especially if it’s on the hem of a skirt or something like that. No one’s ever gonna see it. Don’t beat yourself up about it being on the inside of the bottom of your skirt. Some tucks are totally normal when you’re doing these big circle hems.

Caroline: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so here are a few flounce-y patterns. I already mentioned the Style Arc Sorrento Skirt. This one has two layered flounces, and the skirt has an elastic waist, and it’s, kind of, like, a straight shape until you get to the flounces. And one is set diagonally over the other. So this is the one that I made for Vancouver Frocktails, and it just moves so beautifully. Like Helen mentioned, it’s, like, the perfect dress for, like, flamenco. Tango.

Helen: It makes you wanna dance. You feel like the dancing lady emoji.

Caroline: Oh, a hundred percent. Yes!

Helen: Yeah. There’s the Rosalie Dress by Fibre Mood. This is a short smock dress with a deep V-neck, and it has really cute little flounce sleeves that make it look so unique.

Caroline: And this is so funny, the Rosalie Skirt, no relation to the Fibre Mood Rosalie Dress, is a “pay what you want” pattern by Johanna Morris of Forget Me Not Patterns for Peppermint Magazine. It has a really pretty tulip shape with a flounce at the hem. I guess there’s some connection between the name Rosalie and flounces. Is there something we don’t know?

Helen: Right? Is there, like, a character or something? Or it’s just a really great name for a flounce. I mean, it does seem to suit it perfectly.

Caroline: It totally does. Yeah. Okay. Before we go, we wanna put in a pitch for adding ruffles to your makes because they are such an easy way to dress up and personalise your garments.

Helen: Yes, you can add them pretty much anywhere. You have a seam or a hem around the edge of a collar, the top of an armsyce, to the hem of a sleeve, all along the top of a yoke, around the edges of pockets, to the hems of tops, skirts, dresses, down the edges of button plackets. I mean, I could seriously keep going, like, literally anywhere you have stitching line, you could stick a ruffle.

Caroline: Just slap a ruffle on there.

Helen: Slap a ruffle on there. Yeah.

Caroline: And ruffles are pretty straightforward. Most are just rectangles that are hemmed along one edge and gathered at the other edge. There are also rounded or circular ruffles, which are, like, a combo of ruffles and flounces. Oh, my gosh.

Helen: And ruffles look different depending on how much fabric is gathered into them. So for example, let’s say you wanna add a tier to a skirt. If you cut a rectangle that’s one and a half times the length of the skirt’s hem, it’s gonna look different from a rectangle that’s three times the length of a skirt’s hem.

To get a good idea of what different ruffle ratios look like, you can check out the post “Learn All About Ruffles” at The Shape of Fabric. I think this is really interesting. My, kind of, preferred gathered tier ratio is 1.5 ‘cause I find two, like, too many ruffles, personally. But I don’t know. I mean, what do you think?

Caroline: I think I’m on the same page as you. I will admit that often when I’m hacking a pattern to add a ruffle, I don’t necessarily calculate exactly what the ratio is. I’m often just working with whatever the width of the fabric is…

Helen: Oh, yeah.

Caroline: …and I’ll just cut rectangle strips and just make it work. And whatever looks right and looks wide enough that it’ll gather into something that makes sense I’ll use ‘cause sometimes you’re, kind of, at the mercy of, like, what’s left. Also, bonus: adding a ruffle to a garment is a great way to use up that, like, last bit of fabric that you have that you’re like, what am I gonna do with this last, like, half metre strip of fabric after I cut out my project? You know, you always end up with a little bit extra.

Helen: Yeah.

Caroline: So it’s a great way to use some of that up for a little fun detail on your make.

Helen: Yeah. And if you’re doing, like, a gather-, multi-gathered tier situation, it’s totally normal to have to piece together fabric…

Caroline: Yeah.

Helen: …in order to make the length required. The width of the fabric sometimes is not gonna be enough. And I’ve seen some really cool scrap busted garments where people have used just different pieces of fabric and, kind of, blocked them together and then, gathered them up.

Caroline: Yes!

Helen: And that can look really cool, too. So you don’t necessarily need to have, like, six yards of something. If you have a lot of cotton scraps left over, you can totally put those all together into a beautiful gathered situation.

Caroline: Yeah. It’s, kind of, like a combo of patchwork, tiers, gatherers, ruffles, all in one, and it does look so cool. I’ve seen some garments like this, and I totally wanna do this with some of my cotton scraps.

Helen: Yeah. Or linen scraps would be beautiful, too. I mean, I’m on board. It’s all my favourite things.

Caroline: Ooh. Also, the Designer’s Matchy Matchy Sewing Club, they have a lot of different patterns that are already, sort of, designed to be patchwork-y that are great for scrap busting, and they often have gathered panels and gathered details, so check them out if you’re looking for that look, but you don’t want to, like, improvise.

Helen: Cool. Okay. I will.

Caroline: Okay. The type of fabric is also gonna affect how your ruffles look. So a super drapey fabric, like charmeuse, is going to fall closer to the body than a fabric with a lot of body, like an organza. Oh, my gosh. An organza ruffle.

Helen: Beautiful.

Caroline: She’s the star. She’s showing off.

Helen: The pattern we’re working on right now has, like, flouncy shoulder detail, and it’s so fun playing with fabric. Like, in a rayon, it’s just this beautiful, like, cascade of fabric. But then if you do it in a stiffer cotton, it’s, like, dink, like…

Caroline: Yeah!

Helen: …sticking up outta the shoulder, like, this frill. It’s so…

Caroline: …like little wings.

Helen: Yeah, they’re like little wings. Yeah. I love it. Okay, well adding ruffles is one of the simplest and most impactful pattern hacks there is. You can literally just sandwich them anywhere. So I hope you give it a go. Gathers, shirring, and flounces, oh, my, Caroline! That was so fun.

Caroline: Yeah. This was so fun. I also definitely wanna know what your favourite pattern is, listener, or make that includes these elements. Share this with us on Instagram or email us some pictures. We wanna see your gathered, shirred, flounced garments or maybe whatever you are interested in making and new pattern you’re excited about. Let’s talk about it.

Helen: Yeah! Hit us up.

Caroline: All right. That’s it for today’s episode of Love To Sew. You can find me Caroline at BlackbirdFabrics.com and Helen at HelensClosetPatterns.com and CedarQuiltCo.com. And we’re recording in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

Helen: Head to the Love to Sew podcast to find our show notes. They’re filled with the links and pictures from this episode. And if you’d like to get in touch with us, you can leave us a message at 1-844-SEW-WHAT. That’s 1-844-739-9428. Or send us an email at hello@LoveToSewPodcast.com.

Caroline: And if you love Love To Sew and want more, you can sign up for our Patreon. For $5 a month, you get a full-length bonus episode and weekly behind-the-scenes pics. And for $10 a month, you’ll get all that plus a mini episode focused on sewing techniques, and you get 15% off discount codes for Helen’s Closet and Blackbird Fabrics. Patreon is the best way to support us so that we can keep making quality sewing content. So go to patreon.com/LoveToSew for more info.

Helen: Thanks so much to our amazing podcast team. Lisa Ruiz is our creative assistant. Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin is our editor. And Margaret Wakelee is our transcriber. And thank you so much for listening. We’ll talk to you next week.

Caroline: Buh-bye.

Helen: Bye.

Caroline: I’m gonna flounce on out of here.

Helen: Crushed it.

Caroline: Crushed it.

Helen: Controlled crushed it.

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