Got USMC tartan / Advice on stripe to pleat

[Azevedo]

Thanks very much Pleater!!!

I followed your instructions... But it takes 1 and half hour for each pleat, so it will take some time before I post the final result...

I decided to pleat to the yellow stripe, as the red one would desapear in the tapering...

This picture i took yesterday:




You can see the pleat on the left is not very precise, as the horizontal lines do not match very well. I took more care in the others..

Today I made another pleat! Tomorow another one and I will join the two parts of the fabric on the saturday.

I will do the pleats near the apron last, so I will be able to correct some minor problems... I quite like the result so far. But the facings are a litle bit more wide than I expected... It should be 2" and after sewing is 2" 1/8. Like I will have 11 facings it can lead to more than 1" of my original plan. But, as I said, I can take this difference in the apron.

Another update after the weekend. I hope I can advance on the sewing...

[ChattanCat]

Thanks very much Pleater!!!

I followed your instructions... But it takes 1 and half hour for each pleat, so it will take some time before I post the final result...

I decided to pleat to the yellow stripe, as the red one would desapear in the tapering...

This picture i took yesterday:



You can see the pleat on the left is not very precise, as the horizontal lines do not match very well. I took more care in the others..

Today I made another pleat! Tomorow another one and I will join the two parts of the fabric on the saturday.

I will do the pleats near the apron last, so I will be able to correct some minor problems... I quite like the result so far. But the facings are a litle bit more wide than I expected... It should be 2" and after sewing is 2" 1/8. Like I will have 11 facings it can lead to more than 1" of my original plan. But, as I said, I can take this difference in the apron.

Another update after the weekend. I hope I can advance on the sewing...

I found that the best way is to measure from the apron to each pleat. Each pleat is then added up to the expected length. You can then adjust the pleat width as you sew each pleat. Don't try to adjust the length all at once, but one mm narrower on each pleat won't be noticed.

[Pleater]

Don't worry about the time, you will get faster as you do more sewing - at first it is better to aim for accuracy rather than speed.

Are you pinning the fold?

I should have mentioned that, but I have been sewing for so long it can be difficult to remember that for some people it is all strange and new.

To match up the seam line place a pin through the same point in the pattern each side, such as where a red and yellow stripe meet. By putting the pin through both layers of material you can see that if the pin is perpendicular to the fabric the two layers are exactly matched. Hold the fold carefully, take another pin and slide it through layers so they are hold together and the pin is still perpendicular. You can now remove the first pin. If you put in pins at each horisontal line at first it should help keep the lines matched up.

I think that you made the right choice of stripe, it is going to look really smart.