Pleated skirts are iconic in cosplay (we're all familiar with sailor fukus), so odds are at some point you're going to encounter something that needs a pleat. This tutorial provides an introduction on drafting pleats to sewing projects, and how to figure out how much fabric you actually need for it.
And, for the sake of keeping this broad, it’s not about any specific character. You can apply this to literally anything, but if you'd like some specific examples, both Emmy and Donutjimmy planned and sewed pleats for their Yuna and March 7th cosplays!
Yuna: Fabric | Necklace | Accessories
March 7th: Fabric | Accessories
So whenever I plan pleats, I start with a drawing of how I want the pleat pattern to look. (I usually do this on paper, but for clarity I’ve done it digitally.) I draw out my zig-zagging line for how I want my pleats to be, and then I break it down in segments like so. A segment is where the pattern repeat starts.
On this grid, my repeat is 1″. This means that the line contained within that 1″ is the amount of fabric needed to make up a single pleat.
Measured out, that looks something like this:
(You’ll also want to keep in mind here that the measurement is not literally what it is –– that diagonal line is not exactly 1/2″, but it’s meant to represent 1/2″. You’re working horizontally, not vertically.)
This means that to get 1″ worth of pleated fabric, you actually need 2″ of fabric. 1″ to go forward, 1/2″ to go back, and then another 1/2″ to get you back to the start. When repeating this, this last 1/2″ continues into the first 1″ of the next pleat; that looks like this!
Fun, right?
With these numbers, you can figure out how much fabric you need. Let’s run through that math! (Ugh, math, you say, but accepting math will make you a better sewist)!
Let’s say your pleats are going into a pleated skirt, and you have a 36″ waistband. We need to figure out how many inches of fabric we need for a 36″ skirt made of 1″ pleats. We know from our diagram above that we need 2″ of fabric to make a 1″ pleat.
So first we’re going to find out how many pleats we can fit in our waistband. To do that, we’re going to divide the waistband number (36) by the width of our finished pleat (1).
This is easy for the number we’ve chosen –– we can fit thirty six 1″ pleats in a 36″ waistband! It also could be seventy-two 1/2″ pleats, or eighteen 2″ pleats, or twelve 3″ pleats, or so on.
Check out this basic math:
[waistband] ÷ [pleat width] = _______
36 ÷ 1 = 36
36 ÷ 0.5 = 72
36 ÷ 2 = 18
36 ÷ 3 = 12
Now! We know it takes 2″ of fabric to make a 1″ pleat. So we need to multiply the fabric amount number (2) by the number of pleats (36).
[fabric amount] x [number of pleats] = _______
2 x 36 = 72
1 x 72 = 72
4 x 18 = 72
6 x 12 = 72
Voila! It takes 72″ of fabric to make 36″ worth of finished 1″ pleats. (Or any other measurement. Isn’t it neat that the same style of pleats (length, half-length, half-length) ends up being the same amount of fabric regardless of how big the pleats are? There are just fewer pleats!)
And now that we’ve got that measurement, we just need to decide how long we want the length of our skirt to be. In this case, let’s say it’s 8″ (damn that’s a really short skirt) –– so our skirt pattern piece before seam allowance is going to be 72″ x 8″
Once you add seam allowance, tah-dah! You have how much fabric you need. Well done.
Now you can use this information to plan literally any kind of pleat you want:
I thoroughly suggest sitting down with a piece of paper right now (while it’s fresh) and draw yourself some pleat patterns and do some basic-ass math and figure out some fabric amounts you might need. It’s good practice!
Then come back and brag about it :)
