Sewing Frustrations: Gathering

I had my first experience gathering when I made myself a shirt.  I was scared at first because I had no idea what I was doing. It was a very small gathered spot and it turned out fine.  Since then gathering has been a breeze.  Until this week....

I decided to make Bella a skirt out of some fabric that I had purchased and chosen not to use for a project.  It is a beautiful shiny blue fabric.  I chose to make it into a simple skirt but instead of an elastic waistband I decided to gather it into a straight band and use a button closure.

I used my largest stitch setting to make the gathering stitches and off I sewed.  As I started to pull on the thread to gather it I started to get worried.  This was going to be tough!  The fabric did not want to move on the thread.  I stuck with it but it took longer to gather the fabric then it would have to pull the stitches out and do it by hand!

I have some more projects for that fabric and I will be doing the gathers by hand!