Pleating Tutorial

Myra had asked me to show how I did the pleating on the dress I showed in the last Free Pattern Friday post.
Before I start, I would like to show you my favorite foot to sew with. It's a straight stitch foot. If you have a Bernina, it's number 13. This is my preferred foot to sew with. I change to a zigzag foot when necessary, I also use a cording foot, but that's about it. I will also use a walking foot when it's really necessary. The straight stitch foot also allows just enough room when I'm working on knits to have just a slight zigzag stitch. Love it.

Before I talk about the pleating, I would like to show you how I do the rolled edge. Usually a pattern will tell you to turn under the edge 1/4" and then turn it again. At this point you will need to pin all of this. Drives me crazy and it's such a huge waste of time.

What I do is turn the edge and stitch. Sorry for the somewhat dark pictures, I lost the light on my machine.

For my example I just tore my muslin, usually it would be a nice cut edge. You can see in the above picture that the edge has been turned once.

 Now I will turn the edge again,

 and sew down on the previous line that I sewed.

This is what it will look like once the two lines are sewn on top of each other. Now my example is on muslin with a contrasting thread so that you can see what I did, but typically the thread will match the fabric so if you are off just a bit, it won't show.

The front side of the sewn edge. So easy to do and no time wasted on pinning, YEA! Hope this helps someone out there.

This is the neckline that I posted on Friday.

 A up close picture.

 For the pleating, begin with turning back the edge approximately 1/2" to 5/8".

 You can see in this picture how the pleating goes.

 Continue folding,

 The opposite end should match. Now I did not measure, so what I did was make small changes in my pleating so that when I got to the opposite side, everything matched.

 You can see in this picture the accordion type pleats. Of course muslin will hold a crease, but believe it or not, the panne velvet that I used for the dress held the pleat fairly well.

 This is the beading wire that I used on my dress.

For the example I am using thread. Begin at one end, make sure that you are going through the turned edge.

 Continue feeding the needle through the pleats.

 And then draw it all together.

It's just that simple. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Good Luck!