My next assignment for the pleating class from SAGA was focused on pleating over seams. I had to pleat two samples using two different techniques. One was pleating over tiny French seams. The second involved pleating the pieces in a continuous manner without stitching seams first. These two methods are used to pleat bishop style dresses.
I had trouble with the French seams which is a direct result of the pleater needles. I have seen several complaints about the pleater needles being sold on the market today and I have to agree with them. I never broke this many needles when I was pleating for my daughters 25 years ago. That being said, I decided to think outside the box in order to save my needles. This meant that I had to disregard the conventional pleating wisdom of using a tiny 1/8″ French seam. I went smaller if you can believe that.
I had to get creative in order to do this and I decided my goal would be to create a French seam closer to 1/16″. Such a tiny seam is basically like stitching over piping when you consider the bulk of the enclosed seam allowance and stitching so close to the edge. The bulk would slip out of the bottom of the presser foot while stitching and this would create precise stitching. It would be impossible to get an accurate seam. Also, this would only apply to lightweight fabrics such as batiste or lawn. Anything heavier would just not work for this technique. I realized I should treat this tiny seam just like piping and I searched through my presser feet to find one with a tiny groove that would hold the enclosed seam allowance in place as it traveled under the presser foot. The regular piping foot had a channel that was way too big. The closest I could find was my manual buttonhole foot and a pintuck foot.
After stitching the first seam, I trimmed VERY closely to the stitching; less than a 1/16″. Remember: we want to reduce bulk as much as possible to make this seam fit into the tiny groove of the pleater gear. This line of stitching doesn’t take any stress in wearing, it sits at the top of the seam allowance when the garment is finished. It’s only purpose is to keep the raw edges of the fabric turned under, so trimming that closely will not cause any problems. It is the second row of stitching that takes the stress because it is directly in the seam line of the garment.
To stitch the second part of this seam, I experimented with the two presser feet and the pintuck foot was the winner. It has the tiny groove to hold the little bump of the enclosed seam allowance and the needle position can be easily adjusted for a 1/16″ final seam allowance.
It’s a little wider than 1/16″ but it’s pretty darn close. and it went through the pleater with no broken needles. I was able to pop the seams so that when the fabric came off the needles, the seam was standing upright.
Next time I’ll post about the second technique for pleating a bishop before the seams are stitched. That was Assignment #2 from this lesson.
