In this chapter I’m going to try to present just a few samples, using different neutral coloured fabrics, hand or machine stitched using neutral threads.
I noticed how different fabrics used produce different effects following similar techniques.
The chapter is divided into three:
- Tucks
- Pleats
- Gathers
A pleat is pressed into shape, held in place by line(s) of stitch often at right angles to the pressed folds.
A gather is fabric pulled along a thread, wire, ribbon or other.
Tucks
The varieties of tucks include:
- Basic straight tuck, folded fabric with straight machine or hand stitched lines, parallel to the fold
- Slighly curved tucks
- Filled tuck
- Tucks on the bias or at angles or short lengths part crossing the piece of fabric
- Straight tucks cut, or snipped to alter the texture
- Straight tucks folded or stitched to alter the texture
- Pin tuck, folded and stitched close to the folded edge
- Twin needle machine stitched tucks
- Fabric that was tucked cut and re-stitched together
These samples were mostly made by using fabrics 30cm x 10 cm
Insert 12 photos showing different effects and techniques
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| Calico with series of horizontal machine stitching, different spacing, some hand stitching to alter the texture and pipe cleaners slid along tuck to puff the tuck |
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| Organdie: Similar techniques as calico. The fabric is stiffer and more pronounced tucks |
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| Silk with more soft and flowing tucks, effective shadowing. The next sample highlights the height of the texture |
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| Fine linen scrim. Using similar stitching as previous, but particularly shows the effect of pulling and stretching the fabric afterwards |
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| Silk: Tucks in both directions. The machine stitching trapped the tucks haphazardly. To view the texture machined the finished piece on to calico along two sides, to hold the tucks in place |
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| Type of organza with ripple design in the fabric'. Snipped and cut along the raised tuck edges using sharp scissors and pinking shears |
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| Cotton: Full and part tucks machine stitched across and down the fabric with some single stitched rows to provide the ripple effect |
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| Cotton: Rows of tucks then the fabric was cut into squares and re assembled |
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| Cotton: Different tucks at differentt angles. Pin tucks are shown at the top the zigzag effect and textural effect shown below |
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Pleats
Pleats are generally measured and pressed into place before stitching. The stitching holds the pleat type in place crossing over the pressed fabric. Samples are machine stitched
It is useful to use a fabric that lends itself to staying in place such as cotton, linen, organdie or silk. However if a looser form is required the fabric could be left un pressed allowing for a partly gathered effect and use of alternative fabrics:
- Basic pleat
- Basic box pleat, showing just one of the different types
- Pleats held in place by more than one row of stitching
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| Cotton: Basic pleat and box pleat, pressed then held in place with single row of machine sttiching |
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| Cotton: Pressed basic pleats . The left held in place with three rows of patterned machine stitching. The right has both sides of the pleat trapped with zigzag stitching, twisted back once to give the wave effect |
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| Linen above polyester below. Loose pleating where neither fabrics were pressed |
Gathers
Gathers is fabric pulled over thread, wood, wire, pipe cleaners or other. This can be achieved by different methods, using:
- Hand running stitch along a length of fabric either one line along a narrow strip or following a pattern on wider fabric
- Long machine stitching
- Zigzag machine stitch over a length of wire, string, or wood
- Using tucks to thread string, wood, pipe cleaners or other material
- Pulled thread using fabrics with a woven surface
- Shirring elastic in the bobbin
- Gathering machine
Cotton was used on the following nine collections of samples
Hand running stitch along a length of fabric one line along a narrow strip 15-20cm x 2 cm
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| Single row of hand stitch along one edge produce these rosettes, edges could be altered using pinking shears or other snips and cuts along the loose edge |
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| This and the next two photos show different angles on these manipulated pieces. Shorter stitches produce shallower folds. The bottom sample has folded triangles in a concertina form held together by a thread down the centre of each triangle |
Hand running stitch along a length of fabric following a pattern on wider fabric 15-20cm x 10cm
Each sample has a stretch of non-gathered fabric to show the layout of the stitches
Long machine stitching
Zigzag machine stitch over a length of wire, string, or wood
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| The zigzag width was altered dependent on the wire and string. The wood was too thick for the machine so the third wood sample was hand stitched with some gathering |
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| This fine fabric is open to more manipulation |
Using tucks to thread string, wood, pipe cleaners or other material
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| A series of material fed through the tucks but not gathered: cord, string, straw, wooden kebab stick, double wool, soft pipe cleaner, parcel tape, coarser pipe cleaner |
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| Using a pipe cleaner gives good gathers and the reshaping for added textural features |
Pulled thread using fabrics with a woven surface
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| Cotton scrim with pulled threads evenly spaced in one direction . The finer scrim on the left is more haphazard with gentler texture |
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| Both of these have coarse texture. The left sample has threads pulled horizontally and vertically. The right sample was stuffed with rolled pipe cleaners and as well as pulled thread a running stitch was used between each bump and the whole stitched to finer scrim background to ensure the inserts were not lost |
Shirring elastic in the bobbin
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| Cotton: natural gathering. The bottom was worked in a spiral to produce this lumpy feature |
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| Organza: more gathered effect. Liked the gathering of the bottom sample ever decreasing lines of stitch |
Looking forward to more work using these techniques and so many more. No samples using a gathering machine as I have not got one.
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