30-Minutes with Workroom Tech / Episode Fourteen: Pleating Draperies

In episode fourteen of The Sew Much More Podcast: 30-Minutes with Workroom Tech, Ceil DiGuglielmo and Susan Woodcock talk about pleating draperies. 

You can listen to this episode here: Pleating Draperies Podcast 

Pleating draperies can be a challenge. If you own a drapery workroom you are going to have to pleat!  There is no way around it, but with practice it becomes easier to figure pleats and spaces. 

Pleating Basics

To create pleats you have to start with fullness. To learn more how fullness is used in window treatments, listen to episode three of the podcast "Understanding Fullness" and read the supporting blog using the link below.

"Understanding Fullness" Podcast and Blog / Episode 3 from November 2018

To begin, you must know what type of hardware will be used, and whether it's a one-way draw with one panel that pulls left, or right only like a sliding glass door, or a two-way draw for a pair of draperies with a panel on each side.

To best understand pleating, think about a flat drapery panel before pleating... the extra width left over after you deduct the width of the rod is then sewn into equal sections or pleats.  That's pleating in a nutshell!