Technical Posts

What Happens When You Combine Different Pleats?

This post is the culmination of the basic pleating principles I have covered in the last three blog posts. The importance of understanding this post is to help you identify the different types of p...

The Biggest Problem When Hemming Your Pleats

For those of you who are going to hem your fabric before it gets pleated, this is a WARNING!  Below is a problem we see time and time again, and it often ruins the fabric.  The reason for this is ...

Repairing Damaged Pleats

So, you had your skirt dry cleaned and something looks a little different… Eeeek! I wish I could say I don’t get this call often! So often, in fact, I’ve decided to write a little bit about the pro...

Bias Circle Skirts 101

This post is in response to the many questions we have received regarding the Bias Skirt Fabric Calculator we published a few months ago.  It appears people find this document to be a very useful ...

Circle Skirts, Panels, and Pleating

A question I am often asked is: “How many yards of fabric do I need to make a sunburst pleated circle skirt?” When I start to discuss the concept of panels, people are often unable to follow me. F...

Is Silk Pleating Permanent?

Yes yes yes yes yes…did you hear me say yes! Silk pleating IS permanent. This question makes my father’s blood boil! Every time I say “Dad, someone is asking if silk pleating is permanent?” His re...

What is fusible interfacing?

Fusible is basically a fabric with adhesive on it.  It is used as a backing for the purpose of stability, or for adding body to the fabric.  There are several different types of fusible fabrics an...

The Anatomy of Bias Circle Skirts

For those of you who thought I might as well be speaking Chinese when I described what happens to the grain line in a sunburst pleated skirt – this one’s for you! As you know, there are three grai...

One More Panel Shape

The curved straight panel is the final shape you need to understand regarding the pleating of fabric. This shape is sort of an amalgamation between the square panel and the half circle panel I disc...

The ABC's of Pleating

In this post I will break down and distill the components of pleating to its basic building blocks.  First, I want to preface this post by explaining that when I say pleating, I am referring to the...