Sewing the Perfect Summer Dress, Adventures with a Gathering Foot

I was perusing the accessories catalogue recently and noticed there was a gathering foot, a very useful tool if you ask me! With two little girls there is a lot of gathering of fabric that happens in my sewing. I wanted to make a summer dress with tiers of gathered cotton and the gathering foot provided the perfect tool to play with.

The construction of this dress was pretty simple, a self-drafted bodice, with tiers to form the skirt. Here's what I used:

30cm of 140cm wide fabric for the bodice and straps

Tier 1 15 x 100cm (cut 2)

Tier 2 15 x 140cm (cut 2)

Tier 3 15 x 140cm (cut 3)

All my fabrics used are lovely Liberty Tana lawn from Pitt Trading

My top tips for using a gathering foot....

*Stitch a sample first, every fabric will behave a little differently, so stitch a sample so you know what you're dealing with

*Place the right sides of the fabric together, the top fabric is threaded through the gathering foot.

*Play around with your stitch length to achieve your desired amount of gathering. I used a 4.5 stitch length which gathered the frill to around half the original length of the fabric

*Sew your gathers first while your skirt is flat and sew the centre back or side seam last.

*Gathering is not always exact! so trim off any excess

I added some cotton trim to the joins for a little extra detail, which really elevated this project

The gathering foot eliminates the need to sew rows and rows of gathering stitch and pull up the threads, making life a little easier!

Until next time, happy sewing

Julia x

Article written by Julia Mulcair

Julia Mulcair is the owner of Pitt Trading, an Australian online fabric store and the lingerie society, a monthly subscription service for lingerie sewers. She grew up around fabric, and has been sewing for 30 years. Julia focuses on garment sewing, with a particular love of lingerie making. She shares her makes on Instagram and YouTube and is always working on the next lingerie design!

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Sewing the Perfect Summer Dress, Adventures with a Gathering Foot

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