Brown Florentine

The Brown Florentine:

Chocolate brown velvet trimmed in red, with red slashed sleeves. I don't have much of a dress diary for this one, sadly, because it was so long ago now.

This is where I really learned the tricks of cartridge pleating. First, I did a test strip, to see how densely the velvet would pleat up. I first rolled the cut edge under, and then sewed a strip of gingham plaid fabric over the edge to be my gauge. I experimented with a few different sizes of pleats, measured by how many blocks of the gingham I left between the beginning and end of a stitch.

Once I'd done that, I stitched up the whole skirt, and pulled the pleats. Fitting it all to the waistband was a bit of a hassle, but survivable.

In the end, I had a fairly nice dress!

Photos below courtesy of Kendra at Demode. Costume College (2006?)