Sewing a Cartridge Pleat Skirt

I’m so excited to be sharing with you the next stage of Sewing Bunny’s Dream Prom Dress – a cartridge pleat skirt. A lot went wrong sewing this skirt, and I there was a lot of trial and error, unpicking and finger stabbing to get to the point where I had a finished skirt. But despite the twists and turns, or perhaps even because of them, I really enjoyed making this skirt and found myself really falling in love with cartridge pleats.

The first attempt I made was using my ruffler foot. The sample on the right is the tulle plus the satin underskirt basted together and then ruffled. The sample on the left is the tulle ruffled onto a flat piece of satin. I love my ruffler foot and I was really confident in this solution until i realised that the skirt sweep was going to be a little too small for comfortable walking and dancing.

My next attempt was using one of my favourite methods – gathering with cord. This is a great method for gathering bulky fabrics that are hard to machine gather, and is quite simple to implement. Using this method I was able to gather up the tulle and satin as one to the correct width – however it was almost impossible to sew onto the bodice with my sewing machine.

The next method I attempted was cartridge pleats (or gauging). This is a method that has been on my radar as it is a historical sewing technique that allows you to gather very large quantities of fabric into a small waist. The most ready examples are from the Victorian time period with their large sweeping skirts and tiny waistlines. Cartridge pleats are done exclusively by hand and are quite time consuming. They are made by sewing two or more even rows of basting stitches. The tails are then drawn up to create very even neat pleats that are tightly packed together. The basting threads are knotted and the basting remains on the inside of the garment permanently keeping them in place.

The cartridge pleats are then whipstitched to the waistline of bodice, or the waistband of a skirt. The interesting thing about cartridge pleats to me, is that the internal intake of the pleat either collapses slightly against the body for a light fabric – or protrudes outwards for a stiffer bulkier fabric.

In an attempt to fulfill Bunny’s wishes of gathering the satin and the tulle together, I overlocked the two together before sewing my basting.

The folded in edge is usually much wider for cartridge pleats, but as I had already cut my fabric out with a standard 5/8″ (1.5cm) seam allowance, I was stuck with this, and had to be quite careful with the placement of my basting, and was only able to fit in two rows.

It was quite a long process, but it was so satisfying and I found myself really falling in love with cartridge pleats. Unfortunately when Bunny tried the dress on the weight of the skirt was so significant that the internal edge of the pleats was being pushed into her stomach and made her quite uncomfortable. This is when I realised that a Victorian corset would have extended to the hipline – but because my corset bodice ended at the waist, there was no protective structural layer between the body and the heavy skirt.

So now that I was out of ideas I did the only logical thing – i unpicked it all and started again.

My original plan had been to sew a half circle underskirt to reduce bulk, so I recut the satin as a half circle and attached that to the bodice and the waist stay.

I then applied organza ribbon to the top edge of the embroidered tulle as a facing and to provide me with a stable but unnoticeable base for basting. I also used the organza ribbon as a facing on the centre back of the skirt, to allow me to leave a centre back opening for the zipper. In my experience tulle and zips are not good friends – so I installed the invisible zipper on the satin underskirt only. The tulle skirt has an opening over that area, and the rest of the tulle skirt centre back seam is separate from the underskirt as well. Allowing them to flow and move freely was a good decision and i’m really happy with it.

I then repeated the same process of cartridge pleating – sewing two even rows of basting stitches, dividing the skirt into quarters to control the volume, and then whipstitching the pleats to the waistline.

Everything I’ve read recommended whipstitching the cartridge pleats to the waistline – but after doing this twice I found that whipstitching twice was much more secure and necessary.

I’m so happy with how this turned out and funnily enough I now want to do cartridge pleats on everything. Even though I was exhausted and my fingers hurt from all the hand sewing of heavy fabrics, I was just incredibly satisfied.

To hem the satin underskirt I used a 4″ (10cm) wide horsehair braid to give to more body and help it to sit away from the body. This worked really well – but unfortunately also had to be hand sewn twice. The first time was when I tried to cartridge pleat the satin and tulle together and the satin was a rectangle. The second was after I had recut the underskirt to a half circle. If you’d like a detailed tutorial on how to sew horsehair braid hemlines, you can find that here.

I really hope you enjoyed this video and the process of sewing a cartridge pleat skirt for Bunny’s dream prom dress. I can’t wait to share the next stage with you!