I'm totally in love with circle skirts and most of the times I'd buy enough fabric to sew it. But sometimes I buy, let's say, 1.5 meters of material, which isn't enough for a proper circle skirt and a nice top. That way I'd just gather my skirt. It's quite easy and I've tried all the possible ways of doing it. So what are the ways?

1) Gathering by hand.

The most time-consuming way. It's also not a good one if you aren't sure in your ability to make stitches of exactly the same size.

Start hand stitching about 5 mm above your seam line, and 5 mm below it. 

2) Gathering by a sewing machine.

The most popular and quickest way, as well as my favorite one. All you need to do is to choose the longest and loosest stitch. Leave long lengths of thread and start stitching 1 cm above, and then 1 cm below your seam line. 

It should be done on the right side of your fabric. Don't forget to leave long tails of threads at the end!

Now you can start gathering. Do it carefully, you don't want to break the thread.

3) Gathering with elastic tread.

One of the cheating ways. You can use either the elastic tape or elastic thread. As for the thread, all you need to do is to thread your bobbin with it, the top thread should be your regular one. Choose the longest and loosest stitch and start stitching in a regular way on the right side of your fabric. That's an easy way but be careful with it: for some strange reason it may break your machine. So if you hear that your machine makes too much noise while sewing with the elastic thread, it's better to choose another way of gathering.