Pleating

~The Joys of Sewing~

Last week I started on an order for a little girl's dress. It is a dress for Christmas and another older girl's dress in the same adorable matching print is next.

The dresses will be pleated and smocked and so the first step in the process was to pleat the bodice pieces.

This is my faithful pleater.

Here I am feeding and cranking the fabric through

the pleater, making sure that it runs through

evenly and neatly.

Every so often you must slide the gathered fabric off

of the pleating needles so as not to put too much

pressure on them, for fear of them breaking.

I find it a bit tricky at first when guiding the fabric

through with one hand and cranking with the other,

thankfully practice does make perfect, or at least almost

perfect!

After the whole piece has been drawn through the pleater, all that's

left to do is just slide the fabric all the way off of the needles and snip the

threads.

This is just the beginning, the best is yet to come!

I'll share with you the completed project as soon as I'm finished.