Shutter pleats on a dress

Jun 16, 2008 7 Replies

Hi, I'm sewing a sleeveless dress out of dupioni silk for my daughter and she would like the bodice to have vertical shutter pleats on it. I cannot find a pattern like that. Do you know where I could find a pattern like that or instructions on how to do that? The pattern she selected is Butterick B5176 but she envisioned shutter pleats instead of gathers.



Any ideas?


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Can you describe what you mean by "shutter pleats?" I taught design for thirty years, and I've never heard of them.

Teri

You didn't quote any of the OP, and I didn't see the original message (gmail or sewergirsl?), but google shows several sites with "Shutter Pleats":

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don't know why anyone would want to do that, though. Beverly

What is a "shutter pleat"? Knife pleat? And by "vertical" do you mean in the same direction as the current shirring, or do you actually mean vertical, as in straight up and down?

If you mean substituting pleating for shirring, yes, you can do it. You'll have to figure out how much uptake there is in the shirring and use that for the pleat.

If you mean actual vertical pleats, it would be far easier to find a mock wrap dress that has no shirring, pleating, or darts, pleat the fabric, then cut the pattern out of the pleated fabric. The shirring in B5176 is the equivalent of unsewn darts, and changing the direction may distort the bodice fairly badly. If you're good at dart manipulation, you may be able to recast the shirring to "working darts", and the rest as purely decorative -- but it would be easier for me to drape a new bodice than redo the B5176 bodice to vertical pleats.

It looks like it adds a bit of *poof* in an area that some might like to have more dimension.

But the fashion industry is convinced all women are a size "0". So of course we can use the added width....

Beverly

On fashion models, you can count their ribs.....or play them like a xylophone.

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needtosew wrote:
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above like is a nordstrom dress with shutter pleats.

I am also curious as to how this is done

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