Is everyone ready to get a-gathering? It's part three of the Charlotte skirt sewalong and we're going to be showing you how to:

• prep your length of fabric according to whether you're doing a peplum or a ruffle
• gather and baste your fabric
• attach your peplums and ruffles to your skirts

*Before you begin: have you thought about making your peplum or ruffle in a contrasting fabric? Make sure you are using a fabric of a similar weight (or lighter) as your skirt. A heavier peplum will be bulky at the waistline and harder to stitch, and a heavier ruffle will weigh down your skirt*

Prep:

The first thing to do is determine whether you are making a peplum or a ruffle. The peplum sits at the waist and is open at centre back to allow entry into the skirt, while the ruffle is stitched to the hem and closed at centre back to form one continuous loop.

~ Peplums ~ With right sides together, fold your fabric in half lengthways and stitch the two short ends shut. Trim the excess seam allowance, turn out to the right side, and press.

~ Ruffles ~ With right sides together, hold the two short ends and stitch together to form one continuous loop of fabric. Press seam open.

Gathering:

For this sewalong, we will be gathering our fabric by hand, for which you'll need two hand sewing needles and some thread. Although time consuming, hand gathering is a sure fire way to get perfect gathers. For other options, check out our tutorial, 3 Ways to Gather. Here's how we did it:

Wrong sides together (right side facing you), fold your fabric in half lengthways.

Thread up your two needles with the thread doubled up and knotted together a good two or three times at the ends. You want your lengths of thread to be roughly your waistline plus five-ish inches.

Start at one end of your peplum, or at the seam of your ruffle, and hand sew two parallel rows of running stitch. It is important to stitch these rows at the same time (as opposed to one then the other) so you can gather as you go.

When you get to the end, check the length of your gathered edge against your waistline/hem. It needs to match up perfectly so if it's too short, pull out some of the gathers, and if it's too long, gather it a bit more. Once you've got it the perfect length, tie the two ends of thread tightly together to seal the gathers.

Now all we need to arrange the gathers so they are evenly spaced, and then machine stitch them securely into place. This is called basting. Use the longest stitch setting for this and gently guide the gathers through so as not to move them about too much.

Attaching the peplum:

Lining up the edges of your peplum with the skirt's opening at centre back, pin the gathered edge all along the waistline and stitch securely into place. Don't worry about the running and basting stitches at this point; visible stitches can easily be removed once you've attached the waistband.

Attaching the ruffle:

Right now you'll want to try on your skirt so you can figure out where to attach the ruffle to achieve your desired length. We highly recommend attaching the ruffle about an inch or two above the knee (so that the ruffle ends just below the knee), to ensure maximun walkability. If you decide to attach the ruffle below the knee, be prepared to find out how the pencil skirt became nicknamed the "wiggle" skirt!

Lining up the ruffle's seam with the back seam of your skirt, pin the ruffle to your hem and stitch it securely into place.