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Releasing stitched-down pleats on skirt

I am trying to do a quick-and-dirty last-minute skirt just so I can have something a little brighter to wear to church tomorrow than my usual drab colors, and I have this nice length of fabric and want to make a skirt with stitched-down inverted pleats over my torso and them released to make the skirt fuller around my legs and such. Well, I *think* they're inverted pleats. What they will look like on the outside is a double pleat with the two folds meeting, and stitching it down is going to put a seamline on the outside. (Please pardon my lack of correct terminology; it's been a hairy week -- or else this would have been done Tuesday night -- and I am having massive brain fade)

Does anybody know offhand where the proper point is to release the pleats -- at the level where my torso is no longer the widest point around, or above or below that point -- so it looks the best? I have a very pear-shaped torso that is cleverly disguised by a large bustline, but I don't want any more bulk over my torso than I really need.

I really don't want to dig out all my books and start hunting, because I'll get distracted and will never get this made, so if someone is more coherent than I am and knows offhand, I'd be grateful for that information.

Reply to
Melinda Meahan - take out TRAS
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I did this very thing, but I did it from an elasticized waistband to a pleated one. I placed the pleats to be released just a touch below the widest point, maybe not even 1/4" and the pleats folded out. Maybe I did the wrong thing, but I too have a pear shaped body and it looks okay on me.

Reply to
Raye Ahn

Melinda,

Release them where you would normally have the bottom end of a waist dart. Does that help you? Do you have something in the closet made with waist darts? Dig that out and use it as a ruler. ;)

Good luck!

Sharon

Reply to
mamahays

I don't have anything with darts, and I have a four-cesarean stomach that makes me look 6-7 months pregnant and I'm afraid of accentuating a pregnant look. According to my pattern drafting software I supposedly should only have about a 4-inch dart, but I want a slimmer look on my torso. I am thinking of something like a pleats-below-a-yoke look -- hmmm, maybe I can go in my pattern drafting software and see how long it makes the yoke and go from there.

And I did have some lovely Pendleton wool skirts I wore to school for years as a child -- amazingly, they fit me for about 4 years and they had stitched-down pleats to someplace below where a dart would be, and that's the kind of look I'm trying to recreate.

Well, if I get desperate I will hang the stitched-down pleat thing and do my regular thing (four pleats in front and in back), but I wanted something a little different for a change.

Reply to
Melinda Meahan - take out TRAS

I'll try basting them down that far and seeing what it looks like. Thanks.

Reply to
Melinda Meahan - take out TRAS

McCall's pattern 8530, view C has partially stitched pleats in front and back, two on each side. The pleats are stitched down 6 and 3/4 inches from the waistband in a size 20 skirt. HTH, Emily

Reply to
CySew

Ooh, I never thought to go look at patterns online. This is the same skirt body I have made for 10-15 years without a pattern. I'll go check that one out. Thanks.

Reply to
Melinda Meahan - take out TRAS

Sounds a little like Simplicity 4596 or 4961. When I made skirts like that in high school, I always sewed the pleats to just a smidge below the fullest part of the hip/belly, so they would lie flat. That tends to about 6-9 inches below the natural waist. If you end the stitching higher, the pleats tend to gape open. I don't think that's the look you're going for. ;-}

Reply to
BEI Design

YEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAHYEAH 4961 is exactly it. Thanks!!!!!

I knew I remembered something, but I have been too frazzled to figure it all out. Unfortunately right now it's too late for me to get it done because too many other things came up. Well, there's always next week.

Thanks bunches.

Reply to
Melinda Meahan - take out TRAS

My pleasure! ;-)

Good luck, I'm sure you'll get to it eventually.

Reply to
BEI Design

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