HOW TO STITCH NECK GATHERING KURTI

A neck gathering kurti has gathers or flair at the neck area. The construction and method of stitching a neck gathering kurti is discussed here. These kurtis can be worn with gathering pants (churidhars) or jeans. This knee length kurti does not have slits at the sides.

Material required: 2 ½ metres of cloth

Construction

0 to 1 – Kurti length

0 to 2 – 1/6 chest +1"

2 to 3 – 1/4 chest + 4" or 4 ¼ " or 4 ½”

0 to 4 – half shoulder + 3"

4 to 5 – 1/2"

0 to 6 – 1/6 round neck + 1/2” + 3"

0 to 7 - Back Neck depth (standard = 3”)

0 to 8 - Front Neck depth = 4"

0 to 9 – Waist length

9 to 10- ¼ waist + 4” or 4 ¼” or 4 ½”

1 to 11- 2 to 3 measurement +2” or 3” + 3"

11 to 13- 1”

• Mark the measurements on the cloth with a chalk. The construction is the same as A line kameez with 0 to 4 measurement, 2 to 3 measurement, 9 to 10 measurement and 1 to 11 measurement extended by 3". Join 6 to 7 for the back neck and 6 to 8 for the front neck. Join 6 to 5 for the shoulder.
• For the arm hole curves, join 3 to 5 through a curve passing through ‘d’ as shown. ‘d’ is the midpoint of 4 and ‘c’. ‘a’ is the midpoint of 3 and ‘d’. Take ‘b’ ½” from ‘a’ and draw another curve from 3 to 5 through ‘b’ and ‘d’. The inner curve through ‘b’ is the front arm hole, and the outer curve through ‘a’ is the back arm hole.
• Join 3 to 10 and extend the curve up to 13 by slightly curving the line as shown (you may have noticed that 10 to 13 line is not a straight line it is slightly curved near the hip area.)
• Join 1, 12 and 13 as shown.

Method

First measure and note down the body measurements. You can make a paper draft first or directly mark the measurements on the cloth.

Take the cloth, open it and fold in the reverse such that the two selvedges of the cloth are on top of each other. Then fold again such that the two ends are on top of each other. 

Mark the measurements directly on the cloth using the construction given above. Then join all the lines and curves.

Then leaving 1” extra cloth along the sides and bottom of the dress and ½” extra cloth along the neck, shoulder and arm hole, cut the cloth. (You can refer the pink line for the cutting line.) Remember that the front and back necks and front and back arm holes have different curves and hence have to be cut separately. Hence take care while cutting it. Most importantly the shoulder line of all the pieces must be equal.

Stitching has to be done on the marked lines and curves.

After the pieces are cut and ready, finish the neck. For this pleat the neck area of both the front and back pieces as shown in the figure below such that the cloth after pleating has the length and curve which resembles the normal neck. You can do piping or double folding along the neck area to make it look more attractive. Once the front and back necks are pleated and ready, join the two pieces at the shoulders. Then cut  PUFF SLEEVES following the construction, double fold the ends and stitch on top of the fold or do piping. Once the sleeves are ready, stitch it to the arm holes.

Once done, stitch the sides starting from the sleeve ends and ending at the bottom end of the dress. Finally finish by double folding the bottom end and stitching on top. Your neck gathering kurti is now ready. Turn the dress to the reverse and over lock the cloth to prevent threads from coming out. You can stitch a thin band of about 2" as shown in the figure above to tie at the waist.

 

For more tutorials visit the dress designs page.