French Gathering
"French Gathering is generally used in drawing up the fullness at the back of skirts, when a large quantity of heavy material has to be gathered into a small compass." from the book Home and School Sewing, 1901
The pictures of the French Gathering in this post were taken of a remarkable old Christening Gown. The skirt was gathered using this method. It is sometimes called Gaging.
In this close up picture of the outside of the gown, you can see how the gathers look like little pleats which are stitched to the bodice of the gown.
This is taken of the inside of the gown where the skirt attaches to the bodice. Notice that the fabric has not been clean finished on the inside which would have been standard stitching practice. And most of the fabric from the pleats is on the inside of the gown.
In this photo, I have given you a birds eye view where you can see what the top of the gathers (or little pleats) look like. Very even and neat.
The illustration came from the book I have quoted above and the instructions were from a class I taught many years ago for SAGA. The class title is "Sewing For Infants - Circa 1920", although this stitch is older than 1920.
The gown I have pictured here is a dear treasure and I will feature the entire gown in a later post.
I will be excited to show you.
This is my White Wednesday post along with Faded Charm!
All Designs Are Copyright Protected copyright 2011 Jeannie Baumeister
