The Gathering

[gene]

I am recovering a set of dining room chairs.

The top cover is vinyl with poly batting in the middle and a bottom fabric all sewn together. A boxing is sewn around this and pulled down over foam.

I have pictures but I am using my daughter's camera because my camera broke and I can't find the cable that attaches the camera to my laptop. And no, I can't use my phone because it's so old that I can't find the software to allow me to download pics onto my laptop and no, my phone does not have data.

So, the top vinyl panel is larger than the fabric bottom panel. It appears that they were sewn together using a sewing machine with a differential. The vinyl has a very constant and semetrical gathering all around it.

How do you sew a larger panel to a smaller panel to achieve a smooth gathering?

Unless you have an easier/faster way to do it, I will sew elastic banding around the vinyl panel and use that to cause the vinyl to gather.

Thank you for your thoughts that are on topic.  :) Although there are many times when I appreciate the off topics more than the original post.

gene

[sofadoc]

Yeah, it's tough for us small shops to duplicate some factory methods. I'm sure they have a dedicated machine pre-tuned and adjusted for sewing a consistent gathered stitch. They have it down to a science because they're mass producing.

For me, using elastic is the closest way I've found to duplicate a uniformed factory gather.

[kodydog]

The elastic way is probably the easiest but we generally do it by hand. Kinda tricky to take a 20" piece of fabric and while sewing gather it down to 15" and make the whole thing look symmetrical, but it can be done.

[gene]

Thank you guys. It is elastic for me. I was hoping for a less time consuming option, but gatherers can't be choosers. And i think with this application a uniform gathering is needed.

gene

[gene]

The chairs turned out great. No pics yet.

The top panel was vinyl and the bottom was fabric, with poly batting in between. The fabric panel was much smaller than the top panel, which is why I needed the elastic around the vinyl panel to make both the same. This gave a really nice gathering around the vinyl panel.

The panels have an X top stitched on them. I sewed with the vinyl panel on top and forced the excess vinyl under the walking foot without getting any puckers/folds in the vinyl. I eyeballed the straight line with marks on the edge of the vinyl.

I did sew with the fabric on the top for the first try and it did not turn out well. I took it apart and steamed the backing of the vinyl and the needle holes disappeared.

gene