Gathers might be my favorite sort of shaping. They’re easy to get right – much more forgiving than darts – and they add an interesting little detail. Someone recently asked for more detail on how I make the gathers in my picnic dress, so here it is: a step by step tutorial on gathering.

1. Decide where your gathers go. Mark each end of the gather. For bust gathers, start by subtracting your front underbust/ribcage measurement from your front bust measurement – this is how much you will gather up. Then measure how much ungathered space you want in front, and how much. For example, my front bust measurement is 19″ and underbust/ribcage is 14″, so I need to gather in 2.5″ on each side. If I wanted the final gathers to be 3″ I would need to start with 5.5″, so I might mark my fabric to be gathered between 2.5″ and 8″. This leaves 3″ of ungathered fabric in the middle, which works well for me. You might want to hold a measuring tape up to yourself and make sure you’re happy with where the gathers are going to side and how long they will be.

2. Stitch between the marks, using a slightly longer stitch than usual. The longer the stitch you use, the bigger the gathers will be and the more fabric you can gather in. If you’re using a heavier weight fabric or trying to gather very tightly, you’ll need a very long stich length. If your fabric is lighter weight or you’d like the gathers to be less obvious, use a shorter stitch length. I typically use a stitch that is one step longer than the one I sew seams with.

3. Make the gathers. Pull both threads to the back on each side of the seam. Tie the ends of the thread together in a double knot on one side. On the other side, pull gently on one thread (it’s easier with the back thread, but either will work), pushing the fabric along. When your gathers are the length you want, tie the two threads together.

4. Sew the gathers into a seam. When you sew a gathered piece of fabric to a smooth piece, put the gathers on top. Make sure the tiny ruffled edge is all pulled out so no fabric gets caught poking through. Sew right over your gathering line.

I’m you’re still confused about step three, I made a little video!

My favorite part of my winter coat is the bow collar. This variation on a shawl collar is cozy and warm, since it comes right up to your neck, making it perfect for a winter coat. It works best with an asymmetric closure, but I’m sure you could adapt it to work in the center.

First off: a bit about collars. A collar is usually made of two pieces: a stand, which is a rectangular or slightly curved strip of fabric an inch or two high and as long as the neckline, which is hidden under the collar and raises it up to an appropriate height, and the collar its self, which sits on top of the stand.

These are the pieces of the pattern. You only need one measurement for the collar: the circumference of your neck. Add an inch and a half to two inches to this measurement, since you don’t want your collar to be chokingly tight – this is a coat, it should have breathing room and space for clothes underneath. On your coat, cut down the neck opening until it is as wide as this measurement. If it is already larger, use the neck opening as your neck measurement.

First trace the stand: a rectangle 1 1/2 inches high and as long as your neck measurement.

Next the left side of the collar itself: draw a curve (a half circle, or a slightly flattened half circle) as long as 1/2 your neck measurement. Draw a straight line 5″ up from the top of the circle. This will be the center back seam. Holding the measuring tape perpendicular to the curve, measure 5″ out at several points along the curve. Draw an outer curve connecting these points. About 4″ from the end, start bringing this curve in, so that it meets the end of the inner curve.

For the right side of the collar, flip over the left side. Copy the inner curve, center seam, and outer curve until it begins curving in. Add a straight line extending 4″ beyond the bottom of the inner curve. Draw a straight line up 5″ from the end. Finish the outer curve, keeping it 5″ from the inner curve until it meets this new line.

For the “knot”, trace a 5″ by 5″ square (it says 8″ on the diagram, because that’s what I started with, but I ended up cutting it down to 5, because the knot looked better that way).

Cut out all your pieces from the main fabric. Cut out all pieces except the knot from lining fabric. 

Sew the two collar pieces together along the center seam. Sew the inner curve of the collar to the long edge of the stand for both the main fabric and the lining, beginning from the left side of the collar. There should be 4 inches of collar left over. Sew the main fabric to the lining along the outer edge of the collar, along the extra 4″, and down the short sides of the stand. Turn right side out and top stitch. Gather the collar fabric at the end of the stand, just before the 4″ flap  (this is optional: I didn’t do this, but I wish I had). Sew the stand to the neck opening of your coat.

So far this has been more or less how you’d sew in any collar. Now for the bow! Fold the knot fabric in half and stitch the long sides together. Turn right side out. Sew one end down along the seam between the stand and the collar, where you just gathered. Fold the “knot” strip up and wrap it around the collar. Iron over the other end and sew it down in the same place at the back. I did this part by hand, because the collar is quite thick at this point, and I didn’t want it to show from the front. Your collar is done!

It took me ages to get pictures of this coat. I made it back in November, and I’ve worn it almost every day since. But somehow it took until now to take a photo.

The coat is fitted with princess seams on top, with overlapping center panels like in a double breasted coat. But I only put buttons on one side, leaving it asymmetric. There’s a wide waistband cut in one piece connecting the front and back of the coat, leading into a pleated skirt with welt pockets. It has a shawl collar, which I made a bit longer than the neck opening/collar stand and gathered up with a strip of fabric to make a sort of bow. I’ll put up a tutorial for how to make this sort of collar if anyone’s interested.

This was my original sketch of the coat, which ended up pretty accurate. The biggest change I made was to put in welt pockets, because side seam pockets made the skirt lumpy. I also ended up adding a snap to hold the floppy end of the collar bow in place.

I dyed my hair pink. It makes me so happy.

This is my new Clapotis scarf, knit from two balls of Bernat softee. The pattern is fun to knit, and I was very cold and wanted to be sure it would be long enough, so I just kept going until I ran out of yarn. It is definitely long enough. If I hang it around my neck both ends reach the floor. If I’m outside or in the subway I loop it a couple of times before I put it on so it doesn’t drag on the ground. So I learned something, besides that dropping stitches is fun: three yards is too long for a scarf.

This camisole has an unusual construction. The front is made of two pieces – a sort of horseshoe shaped top and sides which gathers into the center panel. The lace came from my godmother Neva, who was clearing out her lace drawer when I made it. I should probably patch up the lace a bit, but it’s fragile and wouldn’t take it well, and there’s something beautiful in the way old lace falls apart.

Buying fabric in New York kind of scares me. It’s the time when it’s clearest to me that I’m not a real New Yorker. The fabric stores here are crammed to the ceiling with rolls of fabric, beautiful mixed in with really quite ugly, and populated by serious designers on a mission to find a particular fabric. I wish I were one of them, but I’m not. I’m a lost hobbyist, missing the stripes of beautiful fabrics all lined up along the organized shelves of Stone Mountain and Daughter. I love just being around all the pretty fabric, wandering around until the right fabric suggests an unexpected project. There’s no good reason one couldn’t browse until inspired in a New York fabric store, but as soon as someone comes up and asks me when I’m looking for, I panic and pretend I have a plan.

But yesterday I braved the garment district and found this lovely stripy knit, which clearly wanted to be the same shirt I always make. I did make one small change – since this fabric doesn’t curl in on itself, I cut an extra flap of about three inches along the neckline (both front and back) which folds in and forms a facing. I didn’t tack it down or anything, I just shake it into place when I put the shirt on and the fabric clings to itself a bit so it stays put.

This rendition of the only shirt worth sewing is wider than it is long – about 24″ long and almost the full width of the 60″ fabric. There’s a 6″ difference between the front and back to form the cowl, but the fairly wide neck opening means it pulls down lower than 6″ otherwise might.

Making underwear is my favorite way to use up scraps of knit fabric that are too big to throw away, but too small to really make anything out of. You can piece together undies from scraps of different colors or patterns to use up any fragment, however small.

The pattern I use is more or less the same as my swimsuit pattern, with a couple of inches taken off the top. Since I didn’t use elastic, I don’t need a seam allowance for these and I also took off a bit around the leg opening. I recommend just trying them on after you’ve sewn up all the seams but before you finish the edges and trimming off a bit at a time until they look right. I add seams here and there to fit the shape of the fabric – I often divide the front in thirds and use a different fabric for the center from the sides, or divide either piece in half and use the same fabric for both.

I finished these on the serger, but you can also use elastic as in the swimsuit tutorial. Or you can use decorative lingerie elastic. To do so, sew the elastic to the fabric with the right sides facing each other (as if you were making an ordinary seam) using a slight zig zag stitch. Then, fold the elastic under, and top stitch using a wider zig zag.

I always loved this pattern. When it first came out I lived in Sydney, where on the coldest day of the year a determined knitter might wear fingerless gloves, but she’d kind of wish she hadn’t. So I didn’t knit them for years. But now in New York in the fall, gloves are not only manageable, they’re actually quite nice. I hear that in the winter I’ll even want them with fingers!

I didn’t bring the curtains I made last year when I moved. The pleated curtains only fit the windows they were made for and my mom wanted the block print ones. But mostly, a new apartment is a chance to decorate in a new way and making curtains is fun.

For both sets of windows in our new place, I decorated white cotton Lenda curtains from IKEA. In the living room I dip dyed a yellow ombre, and in the bedroom I stenciled a pattern inspired by the designs inside Matthias Church in Budapest.

The stenciled curtain was pretty easy. I sketched the pattern onto a sheet of cardboard and cut out the open spaces to make a stencil. I put the stencil over the curtain and applied fabric paint with a sponge roller. Some times the thin parts don’t come out very well – I’d rather have a little too much paint than a part missing, so I ran over the thin lines a couple extra times. I put dense stenciling at the bottom of the curtain, thinning out at the top.

The dip dyed curtains were a bit more difficult, mostly because I don’t have a good space for dyeing. If you have an outdoor area you can make a bit of a mess in, this would be pretty easy.

The trick to getting the ombre look, where the color gets lighter and lighter, is to dilute your dye as you go along. I started with a very intense dye – I put in about 2/3 the recommended amount of water into a bit more than three packages of rit dye (three packages of goldenrod and about a quarter package of brown to get this color) and dipped in the bottom section of the curtain for 30 seconds or a minute. I twisted and squeezed the dye out, and left the curtain on a piece of plastic to wait. I did the same thing with the other three curtain panels, then added a bit of boiling water to the dye bucket. I dipped the curtains into the slightly diluted dye so the already dyed section and the next section above it were both in the dye for 30-60 seconds, and twisted and squeezed just like before. I kept diluting the dye and dyeing a larger and larger portion of the curtain, until only the very top was undyed. Then I threw the curtains in the washing machine, where the excess dye that washed off dyed the top section. I didn’t wash the curtains before dyeing them, so they shrank quite a bit in the wash, but they were still longer than I wanted and they had each shrunk a different amount, so I hemmed them all to the same length and hung them up.