Align grouped paths to other paths

Question

Is there a way to align these grouped paths to the above path? I am trying to make garment gathers on a technical drawing and just want to evenly distribute the gathers.

Answer 1

Make a strictly horizontal piece of your pattern and drag it into the brushes collection. Define it to be a new art brush if the pattern presents the whole length without repeating or let it be a pattern brush if you want it to be repeated.

A horizontal version of the pattern you used in your example is easy to make uniform with Illustrator's alignment and distribution tools.

The continuity of the pattern brush needs some attention if there's no gaps (spacing =0%). In the next example I flipped a drawn half to make it symmetric:

Object > Expand Appearance fixes the effect and make the stroke non-editable as stroke, it becomes a group of brush elements.

If a circular arc is wanted you can bend a horizontal pattern by applying Object > Envelope distortion > Make with warp > Arc.