The JJ Pleats

Brief instructions how I made the pleats on the JJ blouse. First I decided on the width - the pleat that you will see is 1,3 cm. The whole piece is 5 cm - it is already folded in the middle in the image below.


The pleats start 3 cm from the edge of the button band:



Then a stripe of another 1,3 cm is being cut out. You must imagine it first as follows - a pleat of 5 cm, a stripe of 1,3 cm cut out of the original pattern, a pleat of 5 cm ( it is the simple calculation of - 2,5 cm pleat width (folded) and 1,3 cm overlap. So there you have 1,2 cm left of the pleat and you need 1,3 cm of the original pattern to get back to the 2,5 cm)...


When you tape it together the fold of the second pleat will lie on the green line of the first pleat - meaning that is the intended width of 1.3 cm. Don't forget the 1,3 cm of original pattern between the pleat.


To get the rounding of the neckline you just have to all together and cut according to the in between original pattern stripes.




So this is what your new pattern looks like:

I really liked the use of the pleats in this design of Burda.
To fix the pleats you topstitch it in a way that the next pleat will hide the thread line - you can see it in the following image better: