Botch upon botch
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2014 2:42 pm
Over the years I've developed a 'kilt' pattern that works well with acrylic fabrics which hang nicely, so I thought I would try it out with some heavy-ish black cotton material instead. The kilt design is in three panels: (viewed from above in anticlockwise order) an outer front, a pleated back section and an underlapping inner front. Where the back joins the two front panels, there is an extra pleat each side, to allow the front to be lifted by normal leg movement without dragging material forward from the back. On one side this forms a double pleat (which faces backwards), on the other side it is reversed in the form of a box pleat, so that there isn't an open pleat 'gaping' forwards.
This simply doesn't work with cotton, the front looks fine, but the pleats don't want to hang right. I have stitched them down to hold the creases in place, but they still won't lie flat.
My first attempt at rectification was to remove the box pleat, which stood out like a fan from the side seam, and move it to the centre back. This meant that all the pleats on one side of the back panel had to be unpicked and made to face the other way. As I had already sewn down the creases, this involved some delicate unpicking work. This didn't give much improvement; it was all right when I was sitting on the back panel and pressing it flat, but as soon as I stood up ...boing! .. a frilly black tutu.
The next move was to wash the material and remove the dressing in the hope that it would then fall properly and at least some of the pleats would look reasonable. That was partially successful, although the pleating still doesn't look right, but the washing has shrunk the material and now the skirt looks a little too short. Luckily, some of the material is hidden inside the waistband, so I could unpick that and set it a bit higher to give a longer drop.
Unless anyone has some good suggestions about how to salvage it as a pleated skirt, I think my best option would be to unpick the pleats and just make the back into a plain panel with a little bit of flair and some darts to give it some shape. If there is enough material left over, I might let down the turned hem and replace it with a deeper false hem to give some extra length.
Over to you lads.
This simply doesn't work with cotton, the front looks fine, but the pleats don't want to hang right. I have stitched them down to hold the creases in place, but they still won't lie flat.
My first attempt at rectification was to remove the box pleat, which stood out like a fan from the side seam, and move it to the centre back. This meant that all the pleats on one side of the back panel had to be unpicked and made to face the other way. As I had already sewn down the creases, this involved some delicate unpicking work. This didn't give much improvement; it was all right when I was sitting on the back panel and pressing it flat, but as soon as I stood up ...boing! .. a frilly black tutu.
The next move was to wash the material and remove the dressing in the hope that it would then fall properly and at least some of the pleats would look reasonable. That was partially successful, although the pleating still doesn't look right, but the washing has shrunk the material and now the skirt looks a little too short. Luckily, some of the material is hidden inside the waistband, so I could unpick that and set it a bit higher to give a longer drop.
Unless anyone has some good suggestions about how to salvage it as a pleated skirt, I think my best option would be to unpick the pleats and just make the back into a plain panel with a little bit of flair and some darts to give it some shape. If there is enough material left over, I might let down the turned hem and replace it with a deeper false hem to give some extra length.
Over to you lads.