I tried a new gathering method with W's skirt. I zig-zagged over a piece of thin string (string because it's stronger than thread) all along the part I wanted gathered and then I cinched it up and tried to make it as even as possible. (Dental floss would work great, too.) It was actually WAY easier to zig-zag over the string than to use my normal gathering method (doing parallel basting stitches and then pulling and tugging on those, trying not to break the threads). But, gathering, no matter what method you use, is daunting. Now that W is getting taller, I foresee having to add a layer to her patchwork skirts next year. That's going to suck. As it were, I used 33 patches on the bottom layer and doing the math that would mean 48 patches on the next layer. Ugh. That's a lot of freakin' gathering. Maybe she'll be graduating from patchwork skirts after this year.