Tutorial: Pleated Detailing + Giveaway Winner

It always amazes me how different a dress can be by adding a little design extra. One of my favourite extras to add to an outfit is pleats. I love how it can make it a simple dress look more interesting, or a give a hem more body. This tutorial will show you how to make those pleats.

The good news is they're easy to make!

What you'll need:

• More fabric! - And you were just looking for an excuse to buy more weren't you. You're welcome.
• One ruler - the measuring type, not the presiding over a kingdom type
• Scissors
• Sewing chalk - two different colours

Let's do this:

With a measuring tape, measure the width of the area that you are wanting to add pleats to. For example the width of your hem or your cap sleeve. Write this figure down.

Cut out long strips of fabric. The total length once joined together will need to be exactly 3.66 times the length of your above measurement. It's good to have a little extra to be safe so I usually times it by 4 to keep it simple.

I cut my strips with a 10cm width, but you can make your pleats as long or narrow as you like.

Note: I cut my fabric on the straight grain which makes the pleats a bit rigid. This gives it the nice kick out that I like. If you want a flatter-to-the-body pleat you can cut the fabric on the bias, so that the pleats are flexible and curve around the body.

Join your strips together so that they make one continuous strip that is 3.66 (or 4!) times the length of your original measurement.

Tip: Join your pieces using a french seam so that there are no raw edges.

Hem the length of your fabric. You might choose do do a narrow hem, or encase the hem in bias binding.

On the right side of your fabric along the long raw edge you are going to make alternating notches in intervals of 4 and 7cms.

The first notches (I've made mine red), are the lines that you will be sewing along. The alternating notches (white) are the lines you will be folding. Place your very first notch on the strip 3 cm in from the short edge of your strip.

Continue marking 4cm (white) then 7cm (red) in alternating colours along the length of your strip until you reach the end.

With WRONG sides together, fold along your first white notch (the second notch on the strip).

Sew in a straight line perpendicular from your hem, at your first notch (red).

Continue to fold along the white notches and sew in a straight line from the red notches until you reach the end of the strip. The width of each pleat should overlap the previous stitching line so that it is not visible.

The back of your pleats will be flat and should look like this.

Press your pleats in one direction

Baste along the raw edge of the strip to hold the pleats down.
Trim your loose threads.

Attach your pleats to a seam, or fold under the raw edge and sew onto your skirt.

Tip: I like to overlock the raw edge of the strip once I have basted it.

And you're done! Isn't it pretty?!!

Here are some projects that I have previously made that have pleated detailing. Click on the pictures to see the blog posts.

GIVE AWAY WINNERS!

Congratulations to the following winners who were both randomly selected and have both won a $50 e-voucher to Mood Fabrics!

Angella *originally listed the wrong web address, sorry! Angella please email me at julia[at]juliabobbin.com

and

Jess from Jessthetics

Hooray! I'll be emailing you in the next few days with your vouchers!

Happy sewing everyone and if you use the tutorial, I'd love to see your pictures! Have a lovely week xxx

The Hay Fever Dress - Project Sewn Week 3

Thanks a gah-zillion to everyone who voted for me last week on Project Sewn. I made it through to the next round!! Wah-to the-hoo!

For Week 3 the theme is 'Graphic Print' and here's my bright florally entry. Makes my nose itchy just looking at it! It's Spring in Australia and that means hay fever time. Goodbye jumpers and cardigans, hello tissues.

Once again, check out the fabulous entries and VOTE for your favourite!

I learnt something about myself with this challenge. I realised that even though I love prints and they are well represented in my gigantic fabric stash(es), I rarely actually sew with a print! Turns out when I go into a fabric store without a project in mind I buy up on prints, but when I go in with a pattern or a design in my head first, I lean towards solid colours. Curious-er and curious-er.

In fact, three quarters of my garments in my past projects are with solid colours. I need an intervention.

I loved this challenge for breaking me out of my design cycle and letting the design be inspired by the fabric first.

So here's the nitty gritty:

Pattern

I used the bodice of Vogue 8280 for this dress with some heavy modifications. You can check my original review of this pattern here to see the changes I made.

I drafted my own skirt and sleeves.

Fabric and Construction

For the shell of the dress I used a beautiful cotton sateen that I bought on sale from Spotlight for $4 a metre. This.never.happens.to.me. Cue high-five-ing strangers.

The dress is fully lined, and closed with an invisible zipper down the centre back.

The feature of this dress is a row of pleats along the hem of the skirt and the sleeves.

This took foooorreeeevvvveeerrrrr! Each pleat was individually sewn down and took a total of 4 metres of fabric and four hours to complete. I love the effect though so it was worth it.

I cut the pleats on the straight grain to make them more rigid and less stretchy. This gives the pleats a nice little kick out at the edges which I love.

I love the heart shape of the bodice and the galaxy dress shape of the shoulders. It just feels so freaking feminine!

Styling

Flower crown from Sportsgirl
Red leather bow belt from JigSaw
Patchuli Floc shoes from Melissa Shoes
Chanel lipstick #98 - This is my new absolute favourite red. Not too dark, not too bright, not too shiny, not too matt. Just perfection!

Special Mentions

Today, the 15th of October is mine and my husbands second wedding anniversary and the first with our baby boy. Don't want to gross you guys out too much but I really love this guy. More than sewing. And fabric. That's a lot.

Don't forget to check out the other entries and VOTE for your favourite! Voting closes Thursday at 8pm MDT.

Thanks again for all your support! :))

Coloured Glass - Vogue 1207

 

FACT:  I currently have no nose hairs in my nostrils.

**Serious gross out alert**

That's right, I recently had the insides of my nostrils waxed and it was one of the most bizarre and oddly satisfying experiences I've gone through, and more than a little bit gross. If you all just vomited a little bit in your mouth I apologize. Let's do this.

It's always a little bit awkward when you first bring up the idea of nose waxing to your long term waxer-lady and in a heart beat she responds with over-enthusiasm that I should give it a shot. Good God, how long as she been doing my waxing and staring at my nose like it's an overgrown garden?

Initially I was a little bit nervous. I've plucked a hair out of my nose before and it felt like it was rooted all the way to the back of my brain, such was the sharp, tear-inducing pain that I felt. And secondly, how the heck do you wax something in a small little space like your nostril?

Here's how: she put a ball of hot wax on the end of an ice-cream stick (I kid you not) and then jammed it in my nose, twisting it around so that it covered the walls of my nostril. Then she just let it hang out there. To further ridicule me perhaps, or maybe just so the wax could dry. Whatever. That could have been my most un-sexy moment to date. I felt some distorted version of lady Ga-Ga and not in a good way. Having ice-cream sticks hanging out of your nose is not exactly high fashion.

Then in a moment of truth, the ice-cream stick is yanked (gasp) out of my violated nostril, which I can only imagine is what it must feel like to have your brains yanked out of your head mummification style. You should have seen the amount of hair that was stuck to that gloop of wax. It was like looking at a hair brush. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt. Maybe I was in too much shock to feel any pain. I have to admit, I'm really liking the hair free result, and I feel like I can breathe so much easier!
Any one else done this before?


And aren't you all glad you know that little bit more about me now? **cough**


Right, now I will get back to the actual subject of this blog post, which is the dress I made with Vogue pattern 1207.

 

                                      

I made this dress over a year ago out of beautiful silk twill from Tessuti Fabrics The fabric was very appropriately named 'Coloured Glass' and it looks like the beautiful stained glass windows of Churches.

 

I love the wide front neckline of this pattern and the soft pleated detail on the sleeves.

 

It also has a lovely low V shaped back, which I've always been a fan of.

I'm happy with the overall look of this finished dress but I had some serious issues with it.
Oh boy.

I made this dress in a 12 without doing my usual adjustments (shortening the bodice) and boy was that a mistake. The back was so gapey with the low V that I couldn't walk a few steps without the top falling down and indecently exposing myself! Yikes.
I ended up shortening the back by putting in some not so perfect darts on the back V near the waist, a total of seven cm's taken in on each side. I have a shorter torso, but that was a pretty big chunk off the back. Lucky for me the print is very busy so you really can't see the darts.
I strongly recommend you make a draft of the torso first before cutting up your fabulous fabric. It is very likely if you are short on the torso that you will need to take it in.


I also took issue with the pleats around the waist on the bodice and skirt. Even in this flowy fabric, the pleats really stuck out which made the dress look a bit frumpy side on. The dress looks a lot better with a belt, like in the pictures, which pulls it in a bit more on the waist.

 

Overall I'm happy with the dress, but it did require quite a few adjustments, so if you're thinking of giving it a go, make sure you make a muslin first!

I hope you and your nostrils have a wonderful July 4th!

Mustard and Lace Dress + Give Away Winner!!

If you can't eat it ... wear it.

I recently found out that I'm not supposed to eat mustard. But nobody said I couldn't wear it.

I have not however been given restrictions on lace, though I'm sure it's not entirely good for me to eat. Or is it ...

So I made me up a dress with a lace bodice and a mustard skirt. In your face nutrionists!

Now before I get carried away with my ins and outs of my new fancy pants dress, let's talk Give Away. Oh yes.

I'm very happy to announce that the winner of this months give away, chosen using the Random Number Generator is the very Purpelicious ......

Naomi!

Congratulations! You are now the proud owner of 2 metres of pure silk Peau de Soie/Duchess Satin. I will be contacting you via email shortly.

Ok, now that the balloons have been released from the ceiling let's talk latest dress.

I made this dress using just over half a metre of stunning french lace that I bought from the Tessuti Fabric Store in Melbourne. They had just recently sent out an email to all us fabric addicts showing us their new stock of laces.

Seriously I should just start getting HR at work to pay my wage directly into Tessuti's bank account. I am addicted to their fabrics and cannot stop myself from buying everything that comes into that store.

Any way ... Here's a photo of some of their laces.

Seeing those photos was like a starving man seeing a leg of lamb. My mouth started salivating and I started banging my head repeatedly against a wall. My husband thinks I'm like the self-punishing Dobby from Harry Potter. Which in my opinion is totally off;  I never wear loin clothes. Much.

I love the pattern in this lace. A lot of laces you see now a-days have floral features on them (which I love). I found this pattern delicate and unique.

I featured the beautiful shaped edging by making little cap sleeves out of them.

I underlined the bodice with a cotton lawn so that my bodice wasn't seethrough. Otherwise you would be able to see through to all my wires and buttons and discover my secret that I'm actually a robot (with feelings).

Underlining is great for giving fabric extra-support, drape or to stop a fabric being see-through. It can also help to bring out the colour in your fabric shell. In my case it also stopped the loosely woven lace from stretching and changing it's shape as I sewed with it.

For those of you that have never Underlined before, here's the deal-io.

First, you cut out the identical pattern piece for both the shell and the underlining fabric.
Typically the underlining is a lighter fabric than the shell but not always. Here I've used a cotton lawn as the underlining and the fabric shell is lace.

Look how naked the lace is!

Then, you place the wrong side of the fabric shell (lace) onto the right side of the underlining fabric (cotton lawn).

This means that both of the good sides of the two fabrics are facing up.

Pin the shell to the interlining.

Then carefully you baste the two fabrics together within the seam allowance using a long stitch.  You can do this by hand or by machine. I used the machine for mine.

I used a pink thread so you can see my stitches.

Once you have basted the two fabrics together the piece now acts as one piece of fabric.

Now my lace is underlined and no longer see through!
My example is a little wonky as I rushed it. Yours will look much neater I'm sure.

You can then go ahead and make all your notches and markings on the wrong side of your underlined piece.

Now when you do darts and pleats the two pieces of fabric are kept together and the folds are hidden at the back of the piece instead of being visible from the front.

 

And there you have it. Doesn't that make it look neater?!!

Back to the dress!
I made a scoop neck front and back because I love the shape of it.

I then made up the skirt part of the dress in a quilting cotton that I found on special at Spotlight. Sold! it has tiny little white flowers in it that I find incredibly satisfying in an unexplained way.

I lined the skirt (good girl Julia).

I added two strips of fabric on the hem of the skirt also as a little feature for the bottom half of the dress. These strips were cut out and then folded in half so that they were self faced. I then attached them by machine onto the dress.

The skirt and the bodice are joined together at the waist, with an invisible zipper down the centre back.

And there you have it. I have combined two of my favourite things into one dress. Lace (I don't think I'll ever stop loving lace) and mustard, which is everywhere at the moment ...

...except on my dinner plate.