methods of creating spot volume

Opposite-Edge Gathering takes a  length of fabric and  makes its area smaller by crushing it onto a pulled thread stitching. The freed fabric collects into variable directed folds.

Shirring configures fabric with bands of rolling folds released between rows of gathering, the pinched, puckery, stitching lines form a multidirectional pattern. with a network of gathered stitching seperated by zones of fabric crowded with variable folds, shirring shrinks the original fabric while adding substance to the fabric it acts on.

Meander Shirring is improvised. The design wanders freely.




Cross-Shirring produces pockets of puffy, gathered fabric that spring up between a grid of gathered stitching. Fabric is gathered in two directions.


Pattern Shirring is produced when a design is followed.
Here a circular pattern was used.


Smocking secures and adjusts the folds of a finely pleated field of fabric. Smocked fabric aquires the same thickness as its pleats and it loses flexibility across the pleating.