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Gathering is the process of drawing fullness into a much smaller area to create soft, even folds. Just like with darts, tucks, pintucks, elastics, and pleats, gathering is a way of controlling fullness in a garment. It is most often used at waistline, yokes, sleeves, cuffs or when adding ruffles.

One way of adding fullness to a particular area of your garment, for example, a hemline on a skirt or a back of a dress or even the bottom of a sleeve, is by inserting panels of fabric which are commonly known as godets.

A godet is usually triangular in shape (but not necessarily).

Patterns often indicate which way to lay the pattern piece on the fabric by showing an arrow that should be matched up with the grainline of the fabric. The grainline runs parallel to the selvage edge of the fabric. The crossgrain runs perpendicular to the salvage edge of the fabric. For example, if you have a piece of fabric 5 yards long and 45” wide, the grainline is 5 yards long, the crossgrain is 45”.