Got USMC tartan / Advice on stripe to pleat

**Azevedo** · 12th October 07, 04:01 PM

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.

**ChattanCat** · 12th October 07, 04:57 PM

You are correct with your concern about losing the strip on the red stripes. As you taper from hips to waist, you will lose a line or two. The stripes should never disappear during tapering in the pleats.

That is a wide pleat reveal (2"). Do you have enough material to do a smaller reveal? I would suggest the yellow stripe without losing any lines.

**Pleater** · 12th October 07, 05:58 PM

When sewing tartans the bolder stripes are your friends, you do not want to make them vanish but make them the centre of the panels.

First you need to measure and mark the over apron, the fabric needed for tapering, the under apron pleat, then the deeper fold at the left of the first panel and finally locate the stripes which will be the centre of the first and second visible panels.

To sew panels with the bold stripe centred, fold the tartan right side inside and pin along two adjacent central red stripes, between the yellow ones. Make sure that the fabric matches up at the horisontal stripes. Now mark with chalk or soap the start of the sewing line at the base of the fell one inch from the centre of the red stripe towards the fold, so there will be one inch that side of the red stripe. Now mark the line you will sew up to the waist, moving it towards the red stripe by half of the amount you need to narrow each panel at the waist.

Sew the two layers together. This is the right hand side of the first panel of the kilt after the apron. You will do the left hand side later.

Mark the fold at the waist and base of the fell with a pin - then bring the fold to the stitching line, so you have half of the fabric to each side of the seam. Press the fabric into two equal 'wings' and baste them at the lower edge and just below the fell.

Now you repeat the same process to sew along the other side of the panel, and you should have a complete box pleat 2 inches wide at the base of the fell narrowing to the waist, and half of the next pleat.

Work along the fabric creating panels, basting as you go, then give a second harder pressing once all the folds have been made. Then you can concentrate on the aprons, under apron pleats and larger folds at the edges of the pleats.

You will have to join the two halves of the material together into one strip. I try to put the join to the left of the centre back so as to allow extra fabric for the shaping of the apron and centering the pattern. The under apron usually has a straight edge so the second half of the kilt takes slightly less fabric than the first. I make the join an inner fold of a pleat.

**Azevedo** · 18th October 07, 02:33 PM

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** · 18th October 07, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by 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...

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** · 18th October 07, 04:56 PM

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.

**thescot** · 18th October 07, 07:35 PM

Man, beyond sewing on a button or stitching up a seam, I'm not much of a seamstress.

But I do love reading what you guys who know what you're doing have to say.

thanks from a layman.

**Barb T** · 19th October 07, 10:28 AM

Matching stripes horizontally is a challenge. Here's what I do:

I offset the pleat that I'm stitching to (the new one) a little to the right relative the the existing pleat (maybe 1/32") when I pin, because stitching tends to generate exactly the kind of mismatch that you show in your pic (next pleat stair steps to the left), so offsetting it the other way when you pin helps to compensate. Then, when you stitch, be sure that you bring the needle up exactly at a color boundary when you get to it and poke it down exactly at a color boundary. With a little practice, the combination of the two solves the problem most of the time. I still take out and re-do probably one pleat in every kilt I make because it has a tiny stair step.

Barb

**Azevedo** · 21st October 07, 08:59 AM

Thanks ChattanCat, I started following your advice! It is a nice one...

Pleater, I am using pins... a lot of them. The problem, like Barb mentioned is that the stitching pulls the fabric a little bit... then in the end you have the degrees in the horizontal stripes...

Barb, I am pinning matching the stripes. What I do is, for every stich, pull the under fabric a little bit to compensate and measuring again and again when I have to sew the horizontal stripes together. Takes some time, but it is working

Thanks all for your inputs!!!

Now I have 7 pleats done and just sew the two parts of the fabric together. I plan to sew another pleat today...