I have been using a long stitch length to gather a lot of tulle. Now when I go back to a regular stitch length it is still long or it varies as I am sewing. Also it will not sew in reverse.

Pin as needed to hold gathers in place. Adjust sewing machine to balanced tension and appropriate length stitch for seams before stitching seam with gathered and straight edges. Stitch on the seamline with the gathered side up- watching that pleats are not formed.

If you are sewing by hand then you are pulling the stitches too tight and it causes the material to gather. To prevent this lock the length of your stitch by going back over the last stitch and through the previous stitch or if near the edge. Do a blanket stitch. Using a machine simply alter your stitch tensioner

Stitch length @ 2.5mm (between 2 and 3 on the scale).
Stitch width @ zero.
Top selector lever @ 1 / 2 or (1 slash 2).
Needle position @ center.
That's it, no rocket science here. Stitch length will vary per application and per user choice. The 2.5 setting is only a suggested default.

Are your feed dogs down? If not check your stitch length or possibly it is set to tack stitch. What material are you trying to sew? If it is lightweight like tulle you will have to set your feed dogs. Check your manual on how to do this.

Stitch length of 4, loosen your top tension by half a number and always pull up the bobbin threads.

If you need to gather yards of fabric then get a gathering foot. Janome make one - it looks like this


This foot is for creating soft gathers in lightweight fabrics. The underside of the foot is raised behind the needle and has a thick bar in front of the needle to gather the fabric. This works great to create the gathers as you sew. You can also gather and attach a ruffle onto a flat piece of fabric simultaneously, run the flat fabric through the top groove of the foot and the underneath fabric is gathered and stitched to the top piece, you need to keep the bottom piece feeding smoothly though so it takes practice to guide it evenly. Once mastered it is great to ruffle on valances and cushion frills.

Other option is use a ruffler foot, these will make a little ruffle every 12, 6 or 1 stitch so give a set result, and to obtain a more dramatic gather. They look like this.


The arm of the foot with a C'shape sits over the needle bar of the machine so it is moved up and down to activate the device. The little blade at the front moves backwards at regular intervals forcing a "tuck" of fabric into the feed to be stitched. Again you can ruffle and stitch to straight fabric at once but it is an art to master.

The weight of the fabric you are gathering is obviously the key variable, ginghams and poplins are lightweight so gather easily but if you need to gather something heavy like cordoroy it is going to be a battle and threads may break. If so, stitch two lines of gathers and don't try to do long runs, you'll just break a thread and have to start over.

Another good way is to zig zag over a length of perle cotton, taking care not to actually stitch the pearle at all. You can then gather up the fabric along it, this works well for heavier weights.

there is a couple of things to check:

What stitch length have you got the machine set to? Should be 2.5 for a normal straight stitch - how you set this will depend on the make and model but most machines have some way to adjust the stitch length and width.

Or are the feed dogs lowered? this is sometimes a slide or button on the front base of the machine, sometimes a slide at the back of the free arm, again, it varies between machines. You may need to refer to your machine's manual to establish how this is controlled - you lower feed dogs for things like free motion embroidery so if your machine is computerised with lots of stitches it may even make this adjustment automatically when you choose a free motion embroidery stitch. If that is the case then changing it back to regular straight stitch should return the feed dogs to normal function.

If you raise the pressure foot, and manually turn the flywheel towards you through a couple of stitch sequences can you see the feed dogs raising and falling? If you can't see this happening at all and you are sure that the feed dogs are engaged then it is possible a drive gear in the free arm has failed in which case, you'll need to take the machine to a serviceman.

Normally to gather fabric, you select the regular straight stitch, turn the stitch length up to maximum (4 or 5 usually), and stitch two rows of stitches, one at 10mm from edge and one at 20mm from edge.

Then gather by pulling the bobbin threads (underneath ones) from each end to gather the fabric. If doing lengths of more than 1 metre, then stop, leave long thread tails, and start a fresh length of gathering threads to avoid gathering long lengths of thread which might break on you.

If your machine has a basting stitch it might look like " .___.___.___" on the dial however, I've never been that happy with machine basting for things like attaching slippery fabric to underlining, I've always done it with needle and thread to keep the two layers matching and not stretching/slipping. For example, stitching a piece of chiffon to a underlayer of satin, even pinning carefully, these two fabrics will slip under the machine foot so I'd always do it by hand.

If you have masses of fabric to gather, sometimes what is quicker is doing a large wide zig zag over a length of perle cotton (heavier than thread) at the 15mm seam, don't let the needle pierce the cotton though. Then you can gather the fabric along the perle cotton.

Sewing machine instruction manual often assumes a knowledge of sewing techniques that you may not yet have. I have the Vogue Book of Sewing on my shelf and refer to it often. Or Singer do a good range of sewing books too, its worth investing in a good reference book.

I also love www.patternreview.com, this is such an awesome website for dressmakers/sewing enthusiasts and you will find loads of helpful tips here.

Hope this helps you a little.

So you are sewing two rows of straight stitch at 10mm and 20mm from fabric edge with a stitch length of 4? Are you using good quality thread? I like Molynecke, Guttermann or Sylko Supreme.

Try loosening the top and bottom tension too, and use a gathering foot if you have one.

A quick solution is to zig-zag over a length of pearl cotton or similar heavy weight string/thread, this works well for large volumes of gathers such as around a bed valance frill.

For large volume gathering like cushions and bed frills, I use a pleater/ruffler attachment, however, this has only 3 settings so isn't a variable gathering effect.

Try to make two parallel lines of straight sewing on a big stitch, then pull both ends together. this gives the best gather. Tighening the tension to make the thread pull doesn't work as well, although its OK

The machine is skipping stitches and is probably out of time. Change the needle, rethread the machine and try it again. If it still skips stitches, try lowering the needle by about 1/16 inch and see if it works better. If the timing is off you should take it to a technician for a complete service.
sewman7