As I mentioned in a previous post, I am working on my SAGA Artisan pin for Smocking.  One of the first submissions is a smocked sampler and the pleating has to be ON GRAIN….not something I can do consistently.  Back in the day, when I was stitching up smocked dresses for my little girls, I would crank out pleated pieces and they would always end up off grain.  By a few pleats type of off grain.  Since the pleats still looked nice, and didn’t buckle or pucker, I could still smock a decent piece and just trim off the end to make it even.  Once the dress was constructed, no one knew.

However, in the Artisan program, the piece will be judged on how evenly the pleats come OUT of the pleater, meaning on grain…no more fudging for me!  So I signed up for the SAGA correspondence class for pleating.  It’s filled with great tips and information.

Here is the first assignment.  Its topic is the difference between the right side and the wrong side of the pleating.  Long is wrong.  Most pleaters will create stitches that are longer on one side than the other, depending on the brand of pleater that you use.

For this course I decided to make friends with my new Read pleater.  They are still being manufactured, so the needles are readily available.  I won this pleater in the SAGA Stitches Contest during Convention last September.  I submitted a smocked coin purse, and I won!  I have to admit, I didn’t get along with my new friend right away.  The design of the end pieces has a much steeper incline than good old Sally Stanley and my fabric was getting caught and puckered into the gears.  And it was REALLY dirty….even after running fabric through several times, just when I thought I had removed all the oil….ANOTHER stain.  I got frustrated, and put Read into timeout for a while and went back to using old Sally.  Then the needles on Sally started breaking on French seams …refer to my first post.  I decided to give Read another chance and the correspondence course seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Here is the second assignment, pictured above.  I really think I’m getting used to this new pleater.  So far it is staying on grain a little better and I can stay on the guideline. (It’s not very visible, but there is a blue guideline drawn on the fabric.)

A close up of the guide line is pictured above.  It’s very faint but you can see how I am following it across the width of the fabric by lining it up in one of the slots on the top gear.  The only thing is that I made a mistake and placed the fabric too far to the left.  The guide line is supposed to line up with the last needle on the right, but you can still get the idea.

Below is a close up of the grain line.  So far, nice and straight.  I’ll keep practicing with this one; we just might be best buddies after all.