Knowing how to gather is an essential stitch type in a sewers repertoire. A gathering stitch is commonly used in the creation of skirts and dresses where the fabric is seen to ‘bunch’.

Usually gathering can be done on a sewing machine by using a long length straight stitch. The long stitches give the fabric extra room to bunch up, creating the gathered effect. However this long stitch can sometimes snap when attempting to bunch the fabric which is very frustrating as you have to start again. This simple hack prevents any stitches from breaking, making for a smooth gather.

What you’ll need:

• Sewing machine

• Crochet thread

• An embroidery foot for your sewing machine (it should have a small hole in the base to thread the cord through). This isn’t essential, so if you don’t have one of these you can simply position the crochet thread below the foot.

• Thread and bobbin

• Fabric

Start by thread your machine in your chosen thread combination and make sure your machine is set to zigzag stitch settings.

Then, taking the embroidery foot for the sewing machine, thread the cord through the foot - it should slide from the front to the back of the foot, ensuring to leave a tail at the beginning to pull the gathers onto later. If you don’t have one of these feet for your machine, you can run the cord underneath the foot when sewing, and the zigzag stitches will sit over the top to encase it.

Start sewing the stitch line where you would like to gather. Remember never ‘back-tack’ (sew back over the beginning few stitches to prevent them from coming lose) when gathering. Once you have completed the length of the gather stitch, ensure to leave a tail of cord before snipping from the machine.

Collect the tails of just the cord (don’t catch the threads when you’re holding the cord) and gently start to push the fabric from the edge towards the centre to create the gathers

When joining this gathered piece to the next piece, firstly sew the gathered fabric to the next piece of material. you can then either leave the cord in as is, or remove it from the zigzag encasing by gently pulling it out or cutting it loose.

Happy Sewing!