So have you ever had trouble getting nice gathers on stretchy fabric?
Well here’s my little trick: put a bobbin of elastic thread in your machine instead of your regular thread, and sew two lines of stitches at the longest stitch length. I normally sew them at 3/5″ from the raw edge and just under 5/8″ from the raw edge. The fabric will gather up automatically and evenly! Perfect gathers every time. It even helps prevent those icky wavy seam joins that can happen with knits. Just make sure that that the elastic basting is hidden in the seamline, and don’t unpick your basting – it will help keep everything in place. Also – don’t forget to experiment! Heavy knits will take more rows to gather up well and lighter knits may only need one.
