I am so happy that Catherine from cathgrace is over here today. She is so cute and so sweet, as is her family. You need to check out her blog and follow their adventures over in South Korea! Thanks so much Catherine!
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Hey everyone! My name is Catherine and I blog over at cathgrace, where I document my sewing, crafting, and family adventures, (as a military wife, and mom to two tweens,) while we live in South Korea. I would love it if you would come and visit me!
Today I have a tree skirt to share, but mostly as a means of sharing a pretty fun pleating technique! Thanks so much for having me Hayley, I’ve been loving your Handcrafted Holidays series so far!!!
I used a painter’s drop cloth as the main body of this tree skirt, and began with a 3ft circle that looked something like this….
I know, high tech right? I may or may not have not had my memory card in my camera while taking pictures at this stage….(it’s been a long week 🙂 ) ANYWAY I began by making a 3ft circle, with a small hole in the middle, and a wedge cut out (this will help the tree skirt lay nicely over the base/tree-stand.) I then cut 8, 4″ strips of my drop cloth to be used as a pleated border (you may need more or less than that depending on fabric width, but pretty much you want 3 times the circumference of your circle.) I then sewed all of the strips together, making one long strip (I finished all the edges, and ironed everything too.) This is the part where the cool technique comes into play, I’m sure that a lot of you have heard of knife pleats,
But have you ever heard of fork pleats? Look-y I made a video,
Isn’t that so much easier than having to carefully measure and pin every pleat? It ends up a 3 to 1 ratio for the pleats so that’s all the measuring you need to do! After sewing the pleats, I then sewed them to the edge of the 3ft circle, and top-stitched the pleated layer down, and finished all of the edges with bias binding (that I made out of a ticking stripe)
I top stitched over the binding with a zig zag stitch, in peacock blue (my Christmas colors, are navy and peacock blue) and I closed the split with 5 vintage buttons, and button loops made from the same bias binding.
It really was SOOOOOO fast using a fork to make the pleats, and although it looks like this tree skirt took me hours of measuring and pinning, it really didn’t take any!
Now I just need time to hurry up, and for it to be after Thanksgiving, so that I can actually put up Christmas decorations in good conscience! Thanks again for having me Hayley, this is such a fun series!
Hayley
Hayley Crouse is a wife, mother and multifaceted designer. Her love of sewing, crafting, cooking and interior design infuses her daily life and naturally spills over into her online presence. She pushes the envelope of her creativity and hopes that others will be inspired to do the same. She currently authors the Welcome to the Mouse House Blog, is the pattern designer behind Mouse House Creations and is a collaborative designer with Willow & Co. Patterns.
Latest posts by Hayley (see all)
- Music Room: Home Tour - January 11, 2019
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Why have I never heard of fork pleats before? That’s completely brilliant!
Thank You! I actually learned about them 10+ years ago before blogging was a thing, and then forgot about it completely until I was trying to think of what to share for this post, and suddenly remembered I hadn’t seen fork pleats around for a while!!!
So need a tree skirt and this is beautiful! Thanks for sharing. Pinned!!
Thanks so much!
Thanks for sharing this amazing technique! Now I don’t have to wrestle with my pleating foot; bring on the forks! I am also a huge fan of ticking stripe.
Thank you! I like that doing pleats this way makes the pleats deeper than a pleating foot!
You just made pleating so easy, Thank You!!!
You are welcome! I am so glad I remembered that I learned this forever ago, I had totally forgotten until I was trying to decide what to do with this post!
what a cool technique! Great job Catherine!
Thanks Suzanne! My pictures totally stink, and I doubt I will get any movie awards 🙂 but I think that the technique is pretty awesome!
Thank You so much for having me Hayley! Sorry I lost my mind to Jet Lag 🙂
thank you SO much Catherine!!!
Fork pleats?!! Amazing! Thank you so much for the video. I might actually start sewing pleats again after this. 🙂
Absolutely beautiful! Great time on the pleats!
That is AMAZING!! Thanks for sharing!
I have never thought of this but this is amazing.Good work Catherine!!