Page:A complete course in dressmaking, (Vol. 5, Skirts) (IA completecoursein05cono).pdf/69

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Take a large piece of paper and make a diagram. Draw your center-front line, the length you want your skirt at this point. At the top and bottom, draw lines at right angles to the center-front, making these lines equal to half the width of the material you have joined for the skirt. In the case of the skirt mentioned above, it would be forty-four inches. At the forty-four-inch point, draw a line parallel to the center-front, this gives you the center-back line of the skirt. Use this outline as a working diagram. It's easier to work out the pleats on paper than it is to pin and unpin and pin again in the goods.

The next step is to consider the waist measure in relation to the placing of the pleats. Decide how many pleats you want to put in the skirt. Suppose you want eight pleats and a panel in the front. You know that half your waist measure is fourteen inches. You have fourteen inches of space to divide into half of a panel and the spaces between the pleats. If you count the pleat at the side of the panel as the first pleat and figure on the last pleat coming at the center-back and forming an inverted pleat you will have