Two-tone pleated skirt -- advice?

Dear AMM.

I sadly remember one of my students making a pleated skirt of precious, irreplaceable French lace. She measured her WAIST instead of her hips, then couldn't figure out why the skirt didn't hang the way she envisioned. Make sure that you measure your hips plus a minimum of

1-1/2 inches ease, plus seam allowances, so that the skirt will hang with the pleats closed. You will have to press in the pleats according to these measurements, then overlap each pleat at the waist to get your waist measurement, and re-press from hip to waist.

Remember to understitch each pleat to help hold it in place. Once completed, a trip to the dry cleaners for a really hard press, will keep the pleats in place through many wearings.

It should be spectacular--please let us know how it turns out. Or, even a picture!!

Teri

Well, I'm pretty sure I measured the hip. But I did it again, just to be sure, and even being generous (loose), I get 48".

Thanks for the advice, you're giving me a little more confidence that it might actually work.

But I'm afraid my questions are multiplying like rabbits!

-- The strips of dark fabric will only be 3.5 in., and that includes any seam allowance. I was planning to do all the vertical seems by just overlapping the dark fabric over the light by about 1/4 ", straight stitching down the middle, and zigzagging the whole overlapped area to keep it from ravelling. I was then going to put the outside fold of the pleat right at the edge of the overlapped area at the right-hand side of the dark area, so that fold would be dark and the butt edge would be mostly hidden. (The other butt edge would be hidden by the pleat in front) That would leave 3-1/4" on the outside.

If I space the pleats every 2-3/4 in., I get 1/2 in. of overlap at each pleat, and a circumference of 52-1/4 in. I wasn't sure if that would be too tight on the hips (on the one hand), or so little overlap that the pleats would open up too much (on the other.)

-- I'm not sure what you mean by understitching.

Do you mean where you stich the pleats closed between the waist and the hips?

I've never done this before. I've seen skirts where they just stitched the pleats through from the front to the back, so you could see the line of stitches. I imagine you could also put the seam through everything but the top layer of fabric. (I think that's what they do for kilts.) What are the pros and cons of the various ways of doing it?

Or do you mean something to hold the creases in place below the hips?

I was thinking of stitching the folds in place by putting a seam about 1/8 or 1/16 in. from the edge. Or is that not necessary?

-- I'm also thinking that there's no point in having the light fabric (the inside of the pleat) go above the hips. Does that sound right?

-- A while back, someone on this newsgroup was talking about a wool skirt, and they were advised that a wool skirt should always have a lining.

How do you do a lining for a pleated skirt?

Anyway, thanks for reading and responding.

I'll try to post something, if and when I do this, but sewing is mostly a free-time activity, and I don't get much free time, so it could easily be six months or a year before I start cutting cloth.

-- AMM

Dear AMM,

Most of the two-color skirts that you see pleated are actually stripes, where one color is chosen for the inside. You will be using strips of fabric to make your stripes, thus having seams to deal with. Ideally, one seam would be at each inside and outside fold. I don't know if you have this much fabric.

In this case, "understitching" refers to sewing the inside folds along the completed hem to hold the pleat in place. And now that I'm thinking of the hem, you might want to put in the hem first, with the seams pressed open, then clipped above the hem to be pressed in one direction, following the folds. If you line it, it would be lined only down to the hip, to wherever you end the stitch-downs for the pleats.

This sounds like an awful lot of work. What about making a crazy patch design instead? For this, you would need a basic skirt style, on which you could draw the patches, then put notches and seam allowances on the patches. I've done this with natural linen and a straight skirt pattern, and all the same color. It was very effective.

Before you tackle such a big project, try using two scraps cut the same way you plan to cut your fabric, and sew them together, enough to do about six or seven pleats. See how it hangs with the seams, what the hem does, etc., to be sure you want to do an entire garment.

Teri