To create this Gucci inspired silk crepe de chine shirt, I needed to find pleated ribbon trim. Where do you find such trim in the right color, width, etc.? It’s much easier to make a custom pleating board and make your own.
I started with a length of drapery heading. It’s a stiff buckram used to support pleats in drapes and worked great for this. Cut of a length about three times the length of your finished pleater board. You don’t need to make it more than about 4-5 inches long. I started with about 13 inches of buckram.
Mark parallel lines (I used a water soluble marker rather than a lead pencil. I might want to use this for white trim later and was afraid of pencil marks rubbing off). Mine are 3/8 inch apart. Score the lines with scissors to make folding easier. Line one folds up, line 2 folds down, line three is a placement line. Score and fold the length of buckram.
Press the pleats flat. Fuse a stiff interfacing to the wrong side of the pleater. The right side will have little louvers that ribbon or fabric can be tucked into. When you’ve inserted trim into all the louvers give it a press, let cool and remove. If a longer length of trim is needed, tuck the last pleat into the left side louver and continue.
Notice the pleats reverse direction. I did this at the center back collar so that the pleats would fold towards the front on both right and left sides of the finished collar.
Form enough pleats to reach from center front to center back of the collar. Then flip the ribbon over to the “wrong side”, line up your last pleat, and continue with the opposite side facing up. A box pleat will from at center back. I also made sure the pleats on the cuffs were facing towards the back of the garment.
I like to use a finer thread for the buttonholes; 60 weight cotton works well. Hopefully all goes well and the buttonhole foot holds the fabric securely. Sometimes disaster is lurking and the fabric slips.
Getting those tiny stitches out without damaging the now complete shirt is nerve-racking. I discovered a new use for my furriers knife.
This little baby is SHARP and does a wonderful job of precision cutting. I used a fine gauge machine needle to isolate a few stitches, then carefully cut the threads using the machine needle as a buffer to protect the fabric. This works better if you work in sections. This knife is also my new tool for cutting buttonholes. The blade is super thin and makes cutting a narrow slit easy.
After the stitches have been removed and fabric pressed there’s almost no sign of the mishap. Work a new buttonhole and the disaster is averted. I also found that increasing pressure on the buttonhole foot helped avoid this happening in the first place.
A couple of my blogging friends have explored the world of pleating. Jacqueline of Words to Stitch By mentioned this book: Complete Pleats by Paul Jackson. There is a chapter detailing his method for making pleating molds and steam setting pleats in fabric. Doing yardage is probably best left to the pros, but I’m excited to try a few of the ideas on smaller sections of fabric.
Poppykettle just wrote about her visit to the pleating shop in Melbourne. Melanie posted some wonderful photos of the process. I’ve used International Pleating in NYC for large projects like the skirt for my mother-of-the groom dress a couple of years ago. The pleats have stayed perfect even after being covered with dust and sand and a douse in the sink to clean. Use synthetic fabrics only if you want to try a pleated project. Natural fibers will pleat but the pleats won’t last through the cleaning process.
