Londa’s EZ Pleating w/o Marking

I’m creating a wedding gown for a very special young woman…and in the ‘designing’ progression, she decided she wanted the skirt ‘more poufy’.  Well…that was AFTER I’d already hemmed the Silk Taffeta skirt which is an under layer for a crepe overskirt.  Sew…of COURSE it was then too short!  She had the idea of a pleated addition to the bottom of the taffeta skirt, with the crepe overskirt then roll hemmed to just long enough to cover the seam of the pleated addition to the taffeta skirt.  Sure……….Thankfully, I had enough fabric left over – so I decided on cutting the strips 8″ wide, fold in half – fold being the lowermost edge.  In playing with how much pleat, how deep, how often – I came up with every inch, a 1/2″ deep pleat.  That math then meant that I needed 2x the skirt hem circumference.  I cut the 8″ strips lengthwise on the fabric – and seamed them so I had one continuous length of fabric.  I then pressed in half, wrong sides together.

I HATE math, and boring repetitious tasks, so I was NOT looking forward to marking all of that almost 350″ length of fabric…

Playing, I decided I could physically ‘do’ this right at the machine….my first step was to measure 1″ from the needle in down position  – forward.  I made a mark on a piece of tape, and stuck it to my machine bed.  See photo below.

Measuring and marking a piece of tape on the machine bed 1″ forward from the needle

Conveniently, the break of the metal throat plate was 1/2″ from the needle, and then obviously 1/2″ from the mark I had just made…so that meant that I could put a pin into the fabric at the mark, and pull fabric back until it meets the 1/2″ mark – the break of machine bed and throat plate to create the 1/2″ deep pleat.  See the next photograph.

Fold under fabric from pin backwards to the 1/2″ mark – where the throat plate meets the machine bed.