Two-tone pleated skirt -- advice?

I have ended up with some remnants of wool, a smaller one
in a dark brown, and a larger one in a lighter brown.

I thought I'd try putting them together to make a pleated
skirt with an interesting effect:

I would cut each into 19 strips, 3.5 in. ones of the
dark brown, and 6 in. ones of the light brown, and sew
them together alternating, and fold it so the light brown
is inside the pleats and the dark brown on the outside.

The idea is that if you just stand there, you should just
see the dark brown, but if you spin around, you should see
the light brown as well, to give sort of a pinwheel effect.

However, I don't have much experience with pleated skirts,
and none where it mattered where the pleats fell. I'd
appreciate any advice and suggestions from the more experienced
readers of this newsgroup.

Some of my questions (I'm sure there are things I haven't thought
of):

-- will the idea work at all? Can I get the pleats to fall
and fold right so that the insides will be hidden?

-- how much overlap would I need for the dark brown?
It's kind of tight, since I'm working with a hip
measurement of about 46 in.

-- I was thinking of sewing the creases; that is, crease
the fabric and then put in a straight stitch about 1/8 in.
from the crease.

I'll be grateful for anything you all can offer me.

-- AMM

Dear AMM.

I sadly remember one of my students making a pleated skirt of precious,
irreplaceable French lace. She measured her WAIST instead of her hips,
then couldn't figure out why the skirt didn't hang the way she
envisioned. Make sure that you measure your hips plus a minimum of
1-1/2 inches ease, plus seam allowances, so that the skirt will hang
with the pleats closed. You will have to press in the pleats according
to these measurements, then overlap each pleat at the waist to get your
waist measurement, and re-press from hip to waist.

Remember to understitch each pleat to help hold it in place. Once
completed, a trip to the dry cleaners for a really hard press, will
keep the pleats in place through many wearings.

It should be spectacular--please let us know how it turns out. Or,
even a picture!!

Teri

wrote:
Dear AMM.

I sadly remember one of my students making a pleated skirt of precious,
irreplaceable French lace. She measured her WAIST instead of her hips,
then couldn't figure out why the skirt didn't hang the way she
envisioned. Make sure that you measure your hips plus a minimum of
1-1/2 inches ease, plus seam allowances, so that the skirt will hang
with the pleats closed. You will have to press in the pleats according
to these measurements, then overlap each pleat at the waist to get your
waist measurement, and re-press from hip to waist.

Remember to understitch each pleat to help hold it in place. Once
completed, a trip to the dry cleaners for a really hard press, will
keep the pleats in place through many wearings.

It should be spectacular--please let us know how it turns out. Or,
even a picture!!

Teri

Well, I'm pretty sure I measured the hip. But I did it again, just
to be sure, and even being generous (loose), I get 48".

Thanks for the advice, you're giving me a little more confidence
that it might actually work.

But I'm afraid my questions are multiplying like rabbits!

-- The strips of dark fabric will only be 3.5 in., and that includes
any
seam allowance. I was planning to do all the vertical seems by
just overlapping the dark fabric over the light by about 1/4 ",
straight stitching down the middle, and zigzagging
the whole overlapped area to keep it from ravelling. I was then
going to put the outside fold of the pleat right at the edge of
the overlapped area at the right-hand side of the dark area,
so that fold would be dark and the butt edge
would be mostly hidden. (The other butt edge would be hidden
by the pleat in front) That would leave 3-1/4" on the outside.

If I space the pleats every 2-3/4 in., I get 1/2 in. of overlap
at each pleat, and a circumference of 52-1/4 in. I wasn't sure
if that would be too tight on the hips (on the one hand), or so
little overlap that the pleats would open up too much (on the
other.)

-- I'm not sure what you mean by understitching.

Do you mean where you stich the pleats closed between the waist
and the hips?

I've never done this before. I've seen skirts where
they just stitched the pleats through from the front to the back,
so you could see the line of stitches. I imagine you could also
put the seam through everything but the top layer of fabric.
(I think that's what they do for kilts.) What are the pros and
cons of the various ways of doing it?


Or do you mean something to hold the creases in place below the
hips?

I was thinking of stitching the folds in place by putting a seam
about
1/8 or 1/16 in. from the edge. Or is that not necessary?


-- I'm also thinking that there's no point in having the light fabric
(the inside of the pleat) go above the hips. Does that sound
right?


-- A while back, someone on this newsgroup was talking about a wool
skirt,
and they were advised that a wool skirt should always have a
lining.

How do you do a lining for a pleated skirt?


Anyway, thanks for reading and responding.

I'll try to post something, if and when I do this, but sewing is mostly
a free-time activity, and I don't get much free time, so it could
easily
be six months or a year before I start cutting cloth.

-- AMM

Dear AMM,

Most of the two-color skirts that you see pleated are actually stripes,
where one color is chosen for the inside. You will be using strips of
fabric to make your stripes, thus having seams to deal with. Ideally,
one seam would be at each inside and outside fold. I don't know if you
have this much fabric.

In this case, "understitching" refers to sewing the inside folds along
the completed hem to hold the pleat in place. And now that I'm
thinking of the hem, you might want to put in the hem first, with the
seams pressed open, then clipped above the hem to be pressed in one
direction, following the folds. If you line it, it would be lined only
down to the hip, to wherever you end the stitch-downs for the pleats.

This sounds like an awful lot of work. What about making a crazy patch
design instead? For this, you would need a basic skirt style, on which
you could draw the patches, then put notches and seam allowances on the
patches. I've done this with natural linen and a straight skirt
pattern, and all the same color. It was very effective.

Before you tackle such a big project, try using two scraps cut the same
way you plan to cut your fabric, and sew them together, enough to do
about six or seven pleats. See how it hangs with the seams, what the
hem does, etc., to be sure you want to do an entire garment.

Teri