Knife – Edge Pleats Tutorials (Deployment Projects #78 –80)

When I made these sweet pillows for a friend of mine I knew I wanted to add some knife-edge pleats to the edge of them, so I thought I would take pictures as I went and make a little tutorial for you.  I’m all heart like that!!

I love me some pleats!

 

I used them on this chair…

This one too…

On these pillows…

Even as trim on this dress.

So, if I use pleats so often, they must be fairly easy to do!  You know - I don’t do anything that is too time consuming or too detail oriented!!

The trick to knife –edge pleats is this little tool right here:

It is a ruffler attachment for your sewing machine.

I found mine at Joann's, I believe it was right around $20 - - of course I used my 40% off coupon - - but it is definitely worth every penny I paid for it!  They fit on most any machine - -you just need to know if you have a short or long shank.  You may want to check with your machine manufacturer and see if they have a specific one for your brand of machine, but this one is a general one that fits on all my machines.

To attach the ruffler, remove the screw that holds your presser foot ankle in place.  Set your presser foot to the side.

The ruffler attaches with the forked bar on the right side of the foot, around the needle clamp screw, and then the presser foot screw gets put back in place to tighten the ruffler to the machine.

Now that the ruffler is attached, it’s time to get our fabric ready!

Cut your fabric in 4” strips - - remember you are going to need about 3 times the length of your final product, so cut lots of strips!  I try to error on the side of making more than I need!

 

I find it is easiest to attach all those strips and make one long strip.  The easiest way to do that is to overlap your fabric (right sides together) at a 90 degree.

Then sew them together in a diagonal line from corner to corner.  Trim off the excess fabric.

 

Now you will have one LONG strip of fabric!  Take that strip of fabric fold it in half  and iron it.  So you will have a super long 2” wide strip.

Start with one end of your strip and slip the fabric between the feeder and the base of the ruffler attachment.  (Your fabric will not be against your machine)

Now you let the machine and your ruffler do the work!   This is where you can choose  the length and depth of your pleats.  You can choose to have a pleat made every 1, 6, or 12 stitches.  By adjusting your stitch length you can adjust how long you want your pleat.  There is a screw on the front of the pleater, and by adjusting that you can adjust the depth of your pleats.  It is something you just have to play with a little bit to get the look that you want.

 
 

When I am putting my fabric through the pleater, I try to keep my left hand on the pleats that are being formed.  It helps the fabric run through smoothly and holds the pleat until your machine stitches it in place.  Make sure the fabric you are feeding in is very loose - -it will not be able to pleat if it is trying to pull the fabric up to your machine.

 

Aren’t they pretty?  :)

The very last step is to take that long strip of pleats and iron them so they are nice and crisp.  Make sure you set them on your ironing board so that the pleats are facing to the left and your iron can just run right over them.

 

Easy huh?  I told you it wasn’t hard!   Tomorrow, I am going to show you how to make a bolster pillow, using your knife-edge pleat for trim!!

I thought I was halfway there….

Have you noticed an absence of posts lately?

No, I haven’t forgotten about blog world, but life definitely comes before blogs!!  Life kind of smacked us in the face this past week. 

We started the week off with both kids and myself sick - - not fun :( 

That was followed by trips to the dentist for fillings -  ouch!! (Why do those drills have to sound so horrible?)

And all that fun was punctuated with Handsome Hubby calling and telling me that his orders had been changed and he will now be gone longer than originally planned.    The bad news is that he is gong to be gone a  lot longer than planned, but the good news is that he is now going to get to come home for R&R  (of course, R&R is after he was originally supposed to come home, but at least we will get to see him for a little bit before he has to go back!)  That is just one of those things that you need some time to process.  So, after a week of processing and working through some emotions, I am feeling like myself again.

This is how I found my sweet baby girl sleeping a few weeks back.  She is sleeping with a picture of her and her daddy.  He truly is her hero!!

The hardest part of course was having to tell the kids.  They have been so strong and they have been such troopers, it made me so sad to have to tell them that the end wasn’t as close as we thought it was.  

So, one of our projects this week was to make a paper countdown chain.  The kids worked hard one morning during school and glued all 85 chain links together.  That is the number of days until Handsome Hubby comes home for R&R.  We will make a new one to represent our final countdown after he goes back.

That’s a lot of chain links!!  The good news, is that it could be worse and right now, we are just focusing on the positives.  He has been able to talk to us a lot, he is still coming home and it still isn’t a year – we could have it way worse!!

 

I’ve had some people ask for some tutorials on some of my past projects - -so this week, along with some of the projects I have been working on, I am going to do some special request tutorials!!  The first one, that I will post tomorrow, is how to make mini- knife edged pleats.

Amy Butler Sun Surf Halter (Deployment Project #77)

Just a simple project to share with you today.   If you are a new or beginning sewer - - this is the perfect beginner project for you!!  I love Amy Butler patterns - - to me, they are the easiest patterns and directions to follow!!

 

This sweet little top is only 4 pieces of fabric and super simple.  But it looks so cute on my little model!!

We went to Mount Vernon last week for a field trip and I couldn’t resist getting some pictures of her with the Potomac in the background!!

 

On a side note - - if you are a beginning sewer and would love a step by step how to - - join up with Grosgrain for her Frock by Friday as she helps us make a compete dress by Friday.  Jump over there to find the link to the free pattern and make a dress along with her!!

A few Simple Changes

I wanted to take another look at the Drop cloth chair re-upholstery and point out some of the things that I changed while re-upholstering this chair.  Design changes that make the re-upholstery job quicker and easier!

If you take a closer look at the arms of this chair before shot - - you can see that they have been sewn together without cording.

 

When I re-upholstered this, I found it was much easier to add cording to both sides of the arm. 

 

By adding cording to both sides of the arm – that allowed me to easily use curve-ease to put the sides of the chair on.

On the original chair, they used upholstery tacks to attach the sides – this a decorative way of adding details, but it is:

A. not the look I was going for

B.  not easy to do at all!!

If you need a tutorial to help you with curve-ease, you can visit mine here.

 

By using curve-ease, you can see that I got a very smooth finished side that shows of the shapely curves of the chair!!

 

Just a couple of little changes, that made my re-upholstery job much easier, and added new details and definition to the chair.  As you do more re-upholstery projects, you will become more confident in knowing what things you can change around in your projects!!  I try to use curve-ease whenever possible because it makes the job so much easier and the finished look is so much nicer looking!

Introducing Ethel and Drop Cloth Chair Re-upholstery (Deployment Project #76)

Let me introduce you to my newest family member… Ethel.

After my new (less than one year old) very expensive embroidery/sewing machine broke down for the third time in year that I have had it.  I knew something had to change.  That was 2 months ago and my machine is still in the shop getting fixed - - actually, it got sent back to the factory, but is STILL not fixed.  After talking with a representative from my sewing machine company, I found out that I was actually killing my machine with all the re-upholstery stuff I was doing on it.  Going  through up to 10 layers of thick fabric actually broke the feed dog spring on my machine - - not a common piece to break!  He suggested that I find an old 1950’s Singer machine and use that for my re-upholstery projects.

I found Ethel on Craigslist a few weeks back.  She’s simple, but she is a workhorse!  She will plow through anything and just keep right on going - - no little annoying beeps or error messages. 

There is something enduring about her. 

Her simplicity. 

Her history.

As I’m using her, I wonder about her past.  Who used to own her?  What did they make with her?  Has some mother sat at her and made dresses for her little girl?  Has a grandmother sat at her and made a quilt for a newborn baby?  Has a mother and daughter worked at it together to make a wedding gown?

Let me just throw in here that if you are only doing one re-upholstery project, or even two, you have nothing to fear - - you are not going to break your machine.  I do one to two re-upholstery projects a week - - that much pounding on a machine is just too much!!

So, let me show you the first project that Ethel has completed.

This is the chair I was telling you about yesterday.   This chair is going in a little boys’ room.  My friend wanted a vintage look that would be durable for two toddlers!!  She also did not want to spend a lot of money on the fabric for the chair.  I ended up using drop cloths to re-upholster it.

I had never used drop cloths, but of course I have read about them everywhere on blog world.   I decided to try it out.   I would say that all in all, it was easy to work with - - maybe a bit more difficult to work with than a heavier weight upholstery fabric - - but for a loose, informal look I think it is fantastic.  I did wash the drop cloth before I used it - -they stink something fierce straight out of the package!!

This chair has quite the history.  My friend bought it when they were stationed in Germany.  Brought it to DC when they moved here,  and now, I’m re-upholstering it before they move back to Germany!

Look at the before fabric - - ugh!  Time for a make-over!

When I got the fabric off, I realized that this chair had been re-upholstered once.  There was still some of the original fabric on the chair.  It was originally upholstered in a chartreuse green silk.  I can only imagine that with all her fun curves and details, she was one fancy lady!!