Gathering Foot – wow!

Have you ever seen this before??  Me either!  The other day I was reading some craft blog (that’s what everyone does when they get a spare minute, right?) – I wish I remembered which one so I could point you there – anyways, they were talking about a Ruffle Foot for your sewing machine that would Ruffle as it sewed – sounded fabulous!  So tonight I thought about adding a ruffle to the bottom of a project I’m working on (more on that in another post….) – I checked and had no Ruffle Foot.  But what did I come across – a gathering foot (shown above) – never opened – that came with my serger.  So I thought I’d give it a go.

First you place the material you want to be gathered on bottom, face up:

Then you slide the material you want to be flat face down (that will make “right sides together”) in that groove thing:

Here’s a side view with a very small scrap of fabric representing the piece I wanted flat – it gives a better view without all the extra fabric and fingers in the way:

So you just run it through, with settings on your serger like they said in the instructions that came with the gathering foot.  Hold the top, or flat, material taunt and you feed it through – I wouldn’t say tight, but definite pressure.  The two materials will feed in at different rates – make sure you have a longer piece on the bottom (trust me on this one…)

So when I was done I checked my experiment – voila!  Where has this Gathering Foot thing been all my life??  And where was it when I gathered and sewed layer after layer on those Pink Fluff Skirts!? – that whole project could have been waaaay faster.  Super easy, great results (I had already ran a quick topstitch before I took the picture – that’s the red thread):

Do you have a gathering foot?  Don’t you want to run and check right now??

Thanks for checking out this post from www.SugarBeeCrafts.com – – click on over to read it in its entirety – you’ll love it!