The Pink Flower Skirt...

Thursday, February 12, 2009 Jonette 2 Comments



...where Jonette tries her hand at complex pleating and yards of fabric.

Hallo, everyone. Do you still remember my grandma date at Atang? I'd wanted to make a pretty skirt in honor of the play to wear it to. For such events, it's nice to dress accordingly, the way a lady would. It would be the propah thing to do.

The goal was to make a very feminine pleated skirt from the fabric pictured above -- the kind that grants wishes and makes you happy when you twirl around in it. :)


The night before, I started at seven o' clock in the evening cutting up the fabric right down the middle, and attached the two long rectangles together. (with about two yards at sixty-inches width and pretty embroidery down both sides, this made things a whole lot easier.)

After giving all the raw sides a proper hemming (and diner at nine o' clock), next came the pleating. (Why the time lapse, you ask? If your man don't wanna wake up, you don't hafta wake him up -- until after every fifteen minutes, at least.)

Ah yes, pleating. When working with so much cloth, pleats can bee quite a conundrum. when you start something from scratch. (Read: No instructions. Whatsoever. ) I settled down to box-pleating the skirt beside James, who in turn settled down to bash up goons and level up on the PS2. He has this quirky way of keeping me company, entertaining me and helping me de-stress at the same time, and I'm thankful for that. When I was sweating over how big the pleats should go or how the folds should work and getting dismayed over how the geometry doesn't work the way I'd planned, he'd ask me to "help" him out on two-player mode and beat up mooks and Giant Mooks


He stayed with me all night, giving constructive criticism when I asked, cheering me on, never letting me quit on myself. That's love for you.

Twelve Midnight. I finally decided on a half-over adaptation of the box pleat. (What do I mean? I made a boxpleat, then added a small knife pleat to fit right under the last fold. Repeat for the rest of the skirt.) What I liked so much about it is its ability to hide so much extra cloth under ordinary-seeming pleats. (Twirling is happiness!)



The front of the skirt...





And the back of it. 
I realize I look like a plump-bottomed two-legged giraffe in this one. Strange.


I'm very, very pleased with the result. (I'd better -- I finished everything, slip and all, from 7pm to 5am!) I think I may still need to work on the skirt's waistline, though For some reason, it constantly widens through the day. Hmm... If small hook-and-eye attachments won't work, then I bet the large types will. Oh, and add more pleats. . :)
The twirl! 


Mmmm. Must make more skirts like this...

2 comments:

  1. *Gawk* been swimming in your tag cloud! You are amazing, Jonette!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aww, thanks dear! I'm glad you're enjoying. :) Must post more, then. ^_~*

    ReplyDelete

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