Tutorial: Pleated Detailing + Giveaway Winner

It always amazes me how different a dress can be by adding a little design extra. One of my favourite extras to add to an outfit is pleats. I love how it can make it a simple dress look more interesting, or a give a hem more body. This tutorial will show you how to make those pleats.

The good news is they're easy to make!

What you'll need:

• More fabric! - And you were just looking for an excuse to buy more weren't you. You're welcome.
• One ruler - the measuring type, not the presiding over a kingdom type
• Scissors
• Sewing chalk - two different colours

Let's do this:
With a measuring tape, measure the width of the area that you are wanting to add pleats to. For example the width of your hem or your cap sleeve. Write this figure down.

Cut out long strips of fabric. The total length once joined together will need to be exactly 3.66 times the length of your above measurement. It's good to have a little extra to be safe so I usually times it by 4 to keep it simple.

I cut my strips with a 10cm width, but you can make your pleats as long or narrow as you like.

Note: I cut my fabric on the straight grain which makes the pleats a bit rigid. This gives it the nice kick out that I like. If you want a flatter-to-the-body pleat you can cut the fabric on the bias, so that the pleats are flexible and curve around the body.

Join your strips together so that they make one continuous strip that is 3.66 (or 4!) times the length of your original measurement.

Tip: Join your pieces using a french seam so that there are no raw edges.

Hem the length of your fabric. You might choose do do a narrow hem, or encase the hem in bias binding.

On the right side of your fabric along the long raw edge you are going to make alternating notches in intervals of 4 and 7cms.

The first notches (I've made mine red), are the lines that you will be sewing along. The alternating notches (white) are the lines you will be folding. Place your very first notch on the strip 3 cm in from the short edge of your strip.

Continue marking 4cm (white) then 7cm (red) in alternating colours along the length of your strip until you reach the end.

With WRONG sides together, fold along your first white notch (the second notch on the strip).

Sew in a straight line perpendicular from your hem, at your first notch (red).

Continue to fold along the white notches and sew in a straight line from the red notches until you reach the end of the strip. The width of each pleat should overlap the previous stitching line so that it is not visible.

The back of your pleats will be flat and should look like this.

Press your pleats in one direction

Baste along the raw edge of the strip to hold the pleats down.
Trim your loose threads.

Attach your pleats to a seam, or fold under the raw edge and sew onto your skirt.

Tip: I like to overlock the raw edge of the strip once I have basted it.

And you're done! Isn't it pretty?!!

Here are some projects that I have previously made that have pleated detailing. Click on the pictures to see the blog posts.

GIVE AWAY WINNERS!
Congratulations to the following winners who were both randomly selected and have both won a $50 e-voucher to Mood Fabrics!
Angella *originally listed the wrong web address, sorry! Angella please email me at julia(at)juliabobbin.com and Jess from Jessthetics
Hooray! I'll be emailing you in the next few days with your vouchers!

Happy sewing everyone and if you use the tutorial, I'd love to see your pictures! Have a lovely week xxx