How to sew pleats – 4 different ways

Welcome to a new sewing class. In today’s lesson, I’m going to teach you how to sew pleats professionally.

Today, I will teach you the 4 most common ways of making pleats that we find in the fashion world.

In addition, we will put all of this into practice with sewing patterns that you can download and print at actual size (you will find them right below the video for this class).

In this class, we will work on four fundamental techniques. Knowing the difference between them will allow you to give different volumes and styles to your garments:

• The Knife pleats are those pleats that all go in the same direction
• The box pleat consists of two pleats/folds facing each other, and the inverted box pleat is the reverse.
• The parallel pleat, this pleat is often seen in short skirts; it looks like a box pleat, but it is shorter and is designed inside the seam.
• The parallel pleat with an extra piece is a finish very similar to the previous one, but it is separated into smaller pieces to save fabric.

To finish off the hem in these samples, in the video I’ll show you a trick I really like to do it faster.

However, you can use whichever technique you prefer. If you need to review this step, remember that we have a whole lesson dedicated to hemming, so you can choose your favourite.

Class

When making these samples, it’s important to pre-shrink the fabric beforehand, or they might not turn out well.

As for cleaning up today’s seam allowances, I’m going to use the overlock machine (serger).

If you don’t have one at home, don’t worry, you can use a zigzag stitch with your traditional sewing machine.

Remember that if you have any questions about today’s class, you can always send me an email through your student account, in the support section.

Submit your exercises

To master the art of sewing, the best option is always to practice. Therefore, to finish today’s lesson, I’m going to ask you to make the same pleat samples that I’ve sewn.

Therefore, download and print all the patterns at actual size.

If you use a contrasting thread, it will be easier for me to give you feedback, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Please try to make sure the photos are clear so I can give you better feedback for this exercise.