Pleated tartan skirt - a wearable toile finished for Christmas

I shared this skirt during its making because I had some problems with working out where to go with it. I started without a pattern,  pleating the fabric so that the sets matched and pulling the pleat in at the top, each by the difference between hip and waist divided by the number of pleats. To make it easy to see - if there are 20 pleats and a 10 inch difference between hip and waist,  then each pleat needs tightened by a half inch.

The skirt was originally intended as a toile for a skirt to be made for Helen with our specially commissioned family tartan. I've mentioned this previously and posted some photos.

In a previous post, I showed the skirt on Missy the model in unfinished form - pleats finished but no waistband as I was still unclear how to finish the closure. I could see on Missy that it sat very high on the waist. The pleats had been stitched down to hip level.

I posted the skirt to Helen who indicated that she liked it though it was too long and too high in the waist. She didn't think it was much too big. She was still keen to have a mini version in our tartan but when I said I couldn't get that done for Christmas, we agreed I'd finish the red skirt to wearable level. Hopefully a wearable toile.

Helen visited for the weekend while she was having a kitchen fitted in her new flat and brought the pleated skirt back with her.

This is what I did (after she had gone so I still didn't have the perfect model! )

• I ended up cutting approx 2 inches off the top of the skirt at the waistband.
• I cut approx 2” off the length. I overlocked the edges, turned over a reasonable hem, having to re-press the pleats and did my first ever machine blindstitch hem. Invisible from the right side in this fairly weighty wool. That was successful and so much faster than handstitching. I don't mind handstitching hems but in this case,  I wanted everything over as quickly as possible as I wasn't happy with the way it was going and didn't want to waste more time than necessary. In any case, this was a perfect fabric for using a machine blindstitch and I wanted to practice that.
• I bit the bullet and decided to insert a zip. A bright red one - a bottle green one would have been preferable. To do this, I had to add an extension and produce a type of lapped zip with a very marked overlap. The zip has to fold over with one of the pleats. I tried various versions, took advice, struggled, came up with what became the final version, tried various ways of anchoring etc. I sewed and unpicked several times. I had to cut into the seam allowance to allow the zip to bend back unnaturally and then sew the cut fabric.  The end result is not satisfactory but Helen felt it was acceptable. I don't have close up pictures. I couldn't bear it!
• I added a waistband with a skirt hook and loop, and a small poppet further down to try to keep the pleat in place.

The photos show Helen wearing the skirt on Christmas Day. Her jumper, a birthday present at the end of November, is the perfect colour to go with it. The hat and socks are something else again! She had been wearing the skirt for some time when these photos were taken. I tried to suggest that when she sat she needed to smooth down the pleats but that's a whole new ball game for her.

She likes it despite its flaws and is looking forward to the real deal.

I could see that the zip was visible with certain positions (here is where it being green would have been preferable, our just leaving the gap,  perhaps with an additional fabric underlay).

I could now see how I could have done the zip - Helen wasn't keen on the modification I suggested (basically it would have involved pleasing right up to waistbands, adding an additional fold (clearly should have been there in first place!) as this would have increased bulk at the waistband and this skirt is already extremely bulky. In any case, this would have meant further major restructuring and time, removing waistbands etc, and Helen reminded  me this was a wearable toile which she wouldn't really wear after she gets  the proper  skirt.

So we compromised on me considerably tightening the skirt at the waist - by about 2” - by moving the closures. The small poppet further down just didn't hold. I had taken thread etc but not a larger poppet so we moved the existing one to a better place. The whole is not satisfactory in my opinion but hopefully Helen will get some wear from it.

I'm still not willing to tackle the proper skirt as I'm  still not sure how to get over the closure problem - I rather think I'd have been better missing out the zip here. I made the modifications but don't have a photo showing the end result.

Another issue is that having top-stitched or rather edge-stitched the pleats down to hip level, cutting off a chunk at the top of the skirt meant that this stitching ended well above the hip line. This level is important so the skirt doesn't lie as well as it should. Okay in a toile but certainly not in the real thing. I didn't change it. In any case, I hadn't taken my machine with me and I'm sure Helen wouldn't have let me in any case!

So what did I learn?  

Main thing, easily above anything else:

When undertaking something like this, it's essential to plan out your steps beforehand! I had simply taken the fabric and started pleating it,  matching the sets, without considering the closure. I didn't have sufficient fabric at the end for the closure, still allowing for the match. This would of course have been much easier if pattern matching hadn't been an issue.

Our family tartan has a more difficult match. The pleats would either have to be much narrower, so more pleats and more weight, or much wider with less flexibility on sizing. We are considering  pleat variations, for example multiple smallish box pleats which may currently be the front runner.

What do you think? Any advice?

Despite its problems, I rather like it,  too. I don't regret trying it, or the time spent.

Pleated skirt - a long ago promise still not fulfilled

Some of you may be aware that my husband got some tartan specially woven. I say some - it's a lot!

This post is not going to cover our tartan sagas - I'll leave that for David. He'll post about that and our tartan silk adventure at a later date

The first time was nearly 15 years ago. The tartan had to be specially woven as his tartan is not a tartan that is woven or even appears in any of the tartan encyclopaedias. We found note of it on an Internet search (we didn't have such searches when we first sought it) and were able to get a company to weave it and make David his kilt. It cost an absolute fortune as we had to agree to the minimum print run as well as a very high price per metre. Nice tartan, though, heavyweight.

David in his kilt, casual mode.

My youngest daughter requested a mini kilt made of the tartan. This was in my pre-sewing days so we were going to have to get it made and that was another stumbling block. We felt the tartan was too heavy and were able to order some medium weight tartan from the same company. There was a long time between the request and the new order!  At least 5 years perhaps a lot longer!  This time, our minimum run was 30 metres but the cost per metre wasn't so high.

I finally thought it was time to consider making up her request. However, it wasn't clear what she wanted. She pointed out various designs. Skirts with a couple of box pleats, some with yokes but she also mentioned kilts and full pleated skirts…

When I made her a skirt recently, it's clear she's now wearing her skirts longer than she used to. She's getting older!  They're still short on her endless legs, though!

Anyway, I finally decided now was the time to try. I have Helen's measurements (I'm going to be customising a form for her next week using a tight fitting ‘moulage’) but there was no point in asking about styles as she is too busy following moving into her flat and thinking about and arranging renovations to consider the question. Originally I thought I'd make a skirt for her birthday later this month.

• First decision - I decided to make a toile. Using tartan but not ours. A much cheaper option. Reasons - I've never tried to match a plaid - well I've just realised that's not true - the skirt above as a slight plaid effect, what do you know! Anyway, I've never made a successful pleated skirt (I did try a skirt with a front pleat way back),  and couldn't be sure that the size would fit.
• Second decision - I decided to make a full pleated skirt.
• Third decision - I wasn't going to use a pattern.

I looked at Winifred Aldrich’s book ‘Metric Pattern Cutting’ and also The Great British Sewing Bee ‘Fashion with Fabric’. The latter has good instructions but for a kilt. The former’s instructions are minimal and only cover the fabric folding not construction techniques. Both say to work directly on the fabric, no pattern needed.

So I worked out how to make the pleats. I folded, refolded and folded again until I thought it was looking okay. I ended up with a pleat width of approximately 2 inches. I didn't measure the main body of the pleats as I was folding with the pattern. This test tartan effectively had one plain dark green section alternating with a red striped section. The blocks were rectangles rather than squares.

My pleats were looking okay and I basted them by hand.

Next section was to reduce the width of the waist. This meant that each pleat had to be pushed over a bit more at the waistline. The calculation for how much is effectively ((hip size - waist size)/number of pleats).  To give an example, hip size 36” less waist size 24” is 12” so this amount has to be lost in the pleats - so if there are 24 pleats,  each pleat has to be narrowed by ½” at the top. These are not the actual measurements I used,  just numbers to make the concept clearer. The amount I had to lose on each pleat was somewhat larger and I had 20 pleats.

Showing the waist section; machine basting along waistline and hand-basting 3 inches down

Here came my first (known about) major mistake. I carefully adjusted each pleat, tapering out the adjustment back to zero at hip line and tacked again. Then I realised that the waistband would be fastening the wrong way around. Fortunately, I was able to turn the skirt upside down. I had to undo my tacking, recreate the waist at the other, now correct, end and release the modified waist. Then re-tack.

Looking okay.

So now I just had waistband to do. Closure. And hem.

I realised I had no idea how to do the closure. Winifred didn't help. GBSB was for a kilt not a skirt. I asked my Thursday tutor. She wasn't sure. I wondered about ‘no closure’ - I'm sure I remember having a skirt like this with just a hole inside the overlap and as my tutor said,  this is how pockets are often done. Eventually we decided I'd try an invisible zip, which in turn would be concealed under the pleat. In the meantime,  David suggested a series of hooks and eyes, hook and loop tape or poppets. I bought some hook and loop tape.

I tried the zip and it didn't work. It's possible a lapped zip could work. Not sure. The Velcro is a good idea,  I think. Although I topstitched the edge, it isn't held down so Velcro would solve that issue.

I pressed the pleats, then top stitched them down to hip level.

Before pressing

After pressing

Next discoveries:

• I think the skirt will be too big. Not sure, as there is a lot of bulk at the waist. It's certainly too big on the dress form.
• I don't know how long to make it.
• The red pleats and the green pleats are not the same width.

Now I had to remember this was a TOILE or even a proper test garment,  testing out pleating etc, not a finished garment. It can't be for Helen's birthday.

So, I am going to post it as is. No waistband, no closure, certainly no hem.  If it is too big, there's no point in continuing with this particular attempt. I may get a better idea from Helen about length and style for a future attempt.

I've learned quite a lot. Particularly from my mistakes

• How to work with wool
• How to pleat
• The importance of planning the whole garment before you start. I'd I had stated the pleats differently, the closure would have worked but not as I did it.
• The confidence of working without a pattern
• The stuck feeling when I don't have a pattern to hold my hand!
• The sinking feeling when my tutor doesn't have ‘the answer’!
• I'm rather to hung up on researching methods and practising on samples and over-thinking rather than just doing. This was an attempt to just do.

I photographed and then took out all the tacking. I found that the pleats had slipped open a bit at the waist, despite the 2 rows of machine basting along the waistline and the row of hand basting further below. This may make the waist bigger than I had intended.

Once the tacking was out, the pleats gape more than perhaps they should . In a kilt, the pleats are much smaller than they are here - perhaps I should have more pleats, more closely spaced if attempting this again. That would mean that the overlap for reduced waist would be smaller and more manageable and there would be a greater ability to alter for size. As things stand, to remove even just one pleat would greatly alter the size. And I might be wrong, but think I would have to remove two to get the pleats to match?

On the form, tacking still in place

On the form, tacking removed. Are the pleats too wide/

Again, although the skirt is too big at the waist on the form, I couldn't get it closed properly at the side.
You can perhaps just see the top stitching

I'm very comfortable with how I've left this. Helen may not like it at all and that's okay as I've had some practice. I rather think a skirt like McCall's 7022 would be more suitable - lighter weight and more youthful. A full pleated tartan skirt would be difficult to look after. However.  I'm happy to wait. I'm also sending another skirt toile I'd done for her.

McCall's 7022, view B - I like this view and bought the pattern after seeing it

View B

Now I need to get on with my college homework; not too taxing this week. Then I need to make our evening meal. Warming food for a miserable day,  though it has cleared up a bit.

I'd love your comments!