Pleated Skirt

I bought 1.5 metres of cotton drill in the closest colour I could find for its durability and ease of sewing. I cut two lengths 50cm wide (which left heaps for the hem - I cut off 12cm in the end) and joined them together, then pleated enough for a 1m length. I prefer to sew the pleats down seperately to attaching the waist band, which you can see in the first photo below. Each pleat is 3cm wide with 2cm between each one (mainly to use a little less material), therefore while the skirt is 85cm in circumference I used roughly 2.5m of width to achieve this. To pleat I measured 3 lots of 3cm then 2cm and so on, then each 3cm part gets folded in to form a pleat.

The "invisible" zip went in next, although I am not sure if I quite have the hang of those yet. Perhaps there is a technique I am not aware of. At least a pleat will cover the small amount of exposed zip. The waist band is a simple matter of measuring a strip that will go around your waist and sewing it down. I used the machine for the first side, then hand sewed the inner band as I find this much easier and quicker after trying methods both by hand and machine on my medieval clothing. I also hemmed the bottom by hand and then ironed each of the pleats into place.

This skirt is for Kaname Chidori cosplay.