Mud Pies & Strawberry Shortcake: Meet My New BFFs Handy with Pleats!

When I saw that Kate was going to do a pleat week I was so excited!!! I love pleats! And after perusing her links for ruffle week I just couldn't wait. I picked out my fabric, designed my idea and started planning the execution...and then pleat week started and so did my project....and then I made a new best friend.
I started out by sewing my two coordinating fabrics, the gold/blue print and the solid blue. I love this combo of fabric. So fresh and bright!! I had plans to pleat it so the printed fabric "peaked" through the blue. Actually the best laid plans never work out, and the reason I know this is because my new BFF taught me....want to meet such a wise and knowledgeable sage....here they are in all their blue glory...and no it's not smurfs.

Meet Seam and Ripper....yes they are small, portable, and well a lil ugly but hey they have worked almost as hard on this project as I have. The bigger one aka Ripper has been in my hand since Aug 8th. She is durable, strong and to be honest now a little dull. The little one aka Seam is easily stored in my sewing machine and just as sharp and witty as they come, she loves to slip out of my hand and poke any poor and unprotected fingers, just to show she has some zip! Cute little thing isn't she? ~~Want her?~~
When I started sewing the pleats and had the pattern peak out, well it left the top a little let's say boring...blah...weird looking...idk just not right. So I unpicked 5 pleats and started again by doing a reverse box pleat with the blue as the "box". That didn't look right either so I unpicked 5 of those pleats. Then I decided maybe the reverse box pleat need to be in the pattern, yeah not a fan of that either. Of course I couldn't decide that before I had all 9 pleats done....so I pulled out Seam and Ripper again and got to work. I finally decided to try a box pleat with a little of the patterned fabric showing to create a vertical line and add some pizazz. (side note: is pizazz still a common word, I know it's not mainstream cool but I cannot bring myself to say "this looks sic!" because all I envision is a few hours scrubbing the carpet clean, so pizazz is my word choice today...)
Once that was done I liked it but then when I sewed the satin ribbon around it for a belt affect, I loooooved it! Whew, can I just say I will be happy to get back to my straight lines of purse sewing...oops I have an older daughter who wants one...guess me and the besties will be at it again next week :)

Tutorial:

This may seem a little wonky (I'm full of old fashioned slang words today) but I didn't really go buy fabric for this project. I had some left over from another project
<--- so I just pulled out and used what I had left. She is a super slim size 7 so I figured I'd make it work. You made need to do the math and figure out what you need to buy but I know you can do it!    Here is how I cute the fabric:
                                                                      4.5 inch strips in the patterned fabric
                                                                      2.5 inch strips for the solid fabric
You will also need:
Zipper -length determined by waist to top of leg measurement. I had a 6 inch zipper.(used 4 inches)
                                Satin ribbon- length determined by personal choice. I used 1.5 yards of 2 inch ribbon

Use a tape measure to determine your waist size. Divide that number by 2. Subtract 2 from that number. That is how many SOLID & PATTERNED FABRIC strips you need.
So for example. If you have a waist size of 34 inches. Divide 34 by 2 which equals 17. Subtract 2 from 17 and you get 15. You need to cut 15 strips of the sold fabric 2.5 inches wide. And 15 strips of the patterned fabric 4.5 inches wide. Alternate the strips.

Then just sew them together with a quarter inch seam. I know this is small for a garment but she will out grow this long before it wears out.

Iron the seams flat. See above diagram, you want the patterned fabric open and the seams ironed flat because it will make it easier when you fold to sew the pleat.

Your fabric should look like a big stripey panel. Pretty isn't it!
Now the pleating....take your first patterned piece of fabric where it has solid on both sides.

Fold the patterned fabric right sides together and line up seams. Take a ruler or mat board ruler and mark down the seam 4 inches. Sew a straight line down the seam with the outside of your presser foot lined up with seam.


Please ignore the seam at the top, you have not missed a step. I missed the picture so I went back and took this just to keep you on track. Thanks for not judging my follies (yup more old fashioned slang)

Repeat until all you have left is a solid piece on one side and a patterned piece on the other. This will be your zipper seam. Fold the top over to create a seam or do as I did and just zig zag across the top because ribbon deliciousness will cover it! Sew according to zipper instructions or like your grandma showed. :) Or head on over to See Kate Sew and check out her zipper tutorial.

Once you have your zipper sewn in it's time to cut to length and sew a seam. I had my daughter try the skirt on and we marked it from there. I have a rotary cutter so it was a stack and slice away but you can do this before you start sewing the strips together. Whatever works for you.

Next is the ribbon....yea almost done! I have to admit that I finished the zipper and seam the night before and then the next afternoon put on the ribbon. Fold your ribbon in half and line up with the skirt on the opposite side of the zipper. So when you see my pics let's see if you can guess what button on my machine my children turned but I didn't realize until well into that top seam.....