I just got a couple of yards of 16oz USMC tartan at www.kiltgoodies.com for a very nice price.

My intention is to handsew 4 yards box pleated tank. Like this will be my first sewing project EVER (but I have been training handsew) I would like some advice on the choosing of the pleating: The USMC tartan is 5.5" wide so I plan to make the pleats 2" wide, with 3.5" hidden inside. The problem is that the dark stripe, with the yellow and red lines, are 2.75" wide. For every pleat I would have to take 0.75" away and centralize the yellow strip for every pleat!



To make it less complicated and reduce my chance of erros I am thinking in pleat to the light stripe. The red boxes there are 2" wide so I will only sew them together making 4 vertical red lines.



But I am worried about the tapering. The red stripes will disapear in the waist and I do not know if the effect will be nice...

Any suggestions will be very appreciated.