Practising Before Making

I’m having a Doll clothes project that will need some particular details that looks ‘easy’ to be done but actually not easy. Just because something looks simple, it means it’s easy to be done. It’s not.

Before I start my project, I had been practicing to make small pleat.

  1. I used varied ways, start from using particular sewing feet up to regular sewing feet. I ended up  making it in ‘manual’ way, using regular feet, mark the fabric using ruler, and pleat-sew it using sewing machine.
  2. I found that some fabrics are not good for creating small pleats like this. Small and ‘close’ pleat for exactly.
    1. Using thin and paper-feel linen fabric is the best but we can’t always use this fabric for our any project, like my current project.
    2. I found a very good fabric with colour I needed but the price is a big NO. I think, the store was a bit thrifty. The fabric was like ‘abandoned’ but they didn’t want to give more discount. Good quality one yes, but I am not sure either it’s kind of colour that will sold out quickly. The length is also too short for man clothes but the colour is rarely used for woman clothes. It’s also slightly dust-dirty as well (and i don’t know whether it can be washed or not). So, yes, NO buy.
    3. I used another fabric, brand TOYOBO. It’s cotton. the thickness is good for my project, it’s slightly thicker than i need but it’s ok. The texture is good. The price is good, too.
    4. There are several fabrics that actually i can use, too but again, sometimes, we can’t compromise with the design and the whole look we want to see.
    5. The problem that should be underlined is that when making pleats like this, we can feel, the fabric ‘becomes’  slightly stretchable. That’s why, I said before, the linen on no.1 is very good, because I didn’t feel the stretch too much. Yet, again, back to number 4.
  3. It’s difficult to make a consistent pleat width
    1. I used ruler to help at first but then I did another way.
    2. I fold the fabric and try to fold as same width as previous pleat and then sew it. The previous pleat position is not ‘opened’; if it faces to the left, then let it be. It is to make me keep focusing on the width pleat i’m sewing. I found it’s more difficult to do it when I change the previous pleat direction or open the previous pleat while sewing the current pleat. I’m always distracted and can’t sew it consistently.
  4. I used small stitch size and try to sew about 1mm or may be slightly less than that from the edge/folding. I didn’t sew current-pleats ‘under’ previous-pleat. I don’t know, I feel like the feel of the fabric becomes ‘thicker’ and not like i want. Feel like I’m making ‘accordion’. I really don’t know how to explain it in detail but the point is I just feel it doesn’t become what I want it to be if I didn’t sew it like that (^_^)”. If you think, you prefer to sew the current-pleats ‘under’ previous-pleats a.k.a the stitch is under the previous-pleats, then do it. No-restriction in this case (^_<). You can of course have your own R&D, too!
  5. If you see the pictures above, I haven’t reached what i can call consistency. Even so, it’s the best so far I can get and quite good progress compared to many failures (^_^)”. I still want to do 1-2 practice on ‘real’ project before real-real project is made. Haha. You know what? in real-real project, i only need 2-maximum 4 close pleats actually. Yet, i practice more than 4 pleats in ‘every practice-batch’ because I want to get used to the technique I think it’s the best for me.

I can sewing like this in easy way and fast but the result will not as good as i want it to be. Besides, actually, sewing will be easy and fast if I practice hard and harder. First important is to practice while analysing the BEST way to do it and then keep practicing the best way I find. The more I’m getting used to, the faster i can sew well

It would be different if I sew like a mess and keep sewing like a mess and get used to it. The habit and skill that i will get is skill to sew like a mess.

So, let’s not be lazy and keep practicing a GOOD sewing.