#gathers

I can't even tell you how many days passed and how many curses were uttered in getting this from a mock-up of this overlay (image one) to a mostly functional bodice (image two).

It is just pleated, right? Well, no, it is also gathered and the combination makes things tricky...

Here you can see the pattern on tracing paper pinned to the fabric I'm using as an overlay, I sewed through each line that is marked, removed the paper, and used those lines of stitching as a guide for creasing and pressing the fabric.

The result is...very flat. Even flatter than my chest (impressive) which means it won't sit nicely at all. To form it to the bust the sides have to be gathered, not pleated--but I wanted to keep the definition of the pleats.

So I switched to pleats that were only 1/2" deep, then gathered in-between each one...I also switched fabrics and added some trim to the edge of each box pleat, because without it the detail of the pleats was sort of getting lost in the sheen of the fabric.

Much better! Then the entire edge was gathered down to match the measurement of the lining and the front seam was sewn.

This shows it in this state, on the dress form, resembling that mockup it all started with. But it is shinier (that is the fabric) and has more character (that is the cursing).

Where can I find a good description/drawing/photo/tutorial of how the historical whipstitched gathers are done?

​I have a picture of it in my shirt construction blog post (though I'm working on making an updated post about that).

You just do two rows of running stitches, like normal for gathering, so the stitching line is in between them and they're more even. Then you press the seam allowance under on the non gathered part of the seam, overlap it, and stitch it down with one whipstitch through each gather.

Since I'm unemployed I've been using my time to find leads to lost media. Today I looked for info on Dweebers and Gathers and I found some very interesting info

So something that I noticed that isn't mentioned anywhere is that Vic Tokai, the company tied to both games, is Japanese and the games they developed were first released in Japan (they had an American branch that translated and localized games other companies developed.)

Now theres a game that was released called Daedalian Opus, which I just learned was also made by Vic Tokai, and was developed at the same time as Gathers. I know this because one of the two screenshots we have of Gathers comes from a 1989 magazine page that also has the original name of Daedalian Opus listed next to it, Puzzle Road.

This was in vol 1 of Game Boy Magazine. Vol 2 features the second screenshot of Gathers, but I was not able to find the full page to look for other clues. However, I was able to find in the table of contents Puzzle Road listed among other games

So why am I focusing on Puzzle Road/Daedalian Opus? Its because the American box art resembles the art style of the Dweebers artwork.

And theres a good reason why they would look the same, Vic Tokai hired an artist named Lawrence Fletcher to make a few new covers to replace the Japanese covers for their American releases. The original Japanese release of Puzzle Road looked completely different

The first main point I want to make is that if Vic Tokai went as far as to make art for an American cover, then there must also be Japanese cover art out there.

The second point I want to make I realized right as I was making this post. The reason why we are struggling to find Gathers is because the name might have been translated incorrectly! The name as it appears in the magazine is

and when I went to Google translate, I put in

but I left out the dash in the middle, and when I added it in...

the games name might actually be Gears! I can't be 100% sure because i don't actually know Japanese, and it would make more sense for it to be Gathers because the point of the game is to gather things, but I still thought I should bring it up.

I think the final connection I want to make will cement the connection between Dweebers and Gathers. You see in the magazine that Puzzle Road and Gathers are listed next to each other. Well, our source for the Dweebers art also had another game listed

and they were the only two Gameboy games listed in the whole brochure! (this is a Vic Tokai brochure listing games from 1989 to 1990)