Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • [Intro music]

  • Hi! Today I’m going to show you how to make

  • a knife pleated skirt with a hidden zipper. So let’s begin!

  • So, the first thing you need to do is to take your waist measurement just below the smallest

  • part of your waist, or where ever you want your skirt to sit.

  • My waist measurement is 30 inches. Multiply this measurement by three add two inches to

  • either side for the zipper and the seam allowance and this will be the width of your fabric.

  • The length will be however long you want your skirt to be. Mine is 17 inches.

  • Cut a piece of fabric out to this size. Start making your measurements from 1 inch

  • in. This will allow you to insert a hidden zipper later on. Make a mark along the fabric

  • every 3 inches until you reach the end of your fabric. Your marks will go in a repeating

  • pattern. One, two, three, one, two, three. Put a pin in every "one" mark.

  • To make a pleat, pinch the fabric at "one", fold it over to "three", and remove the pin

  • from "one" and pin it in place. Here’s how it looks from the opposite angle,

  • which might make this clearer. Pinch the fabric at "one", fold it over to "three", remove the

  • pin from "one", pin it in place. Continue doing this all the way along your skirt.

  • Once it’s all pinned up like this, sew using a straight stitch in the opposite direction

  • from where you pleated it. This will make sure that you won’t bunch up the pleats

  • on the other side of the fabric. Then (and this is optional) you can sew down

  • each pleat, one or two inches. On the bottom of the skirt (the edge without

  • the pleats) make a hem by folding this raw edge up twice, and using a straight stitch,

  • stitch over the top. This is called a rolled hem.

  • Now, I should have ironed my skirt before sewing it, but it doesn’t really matter.

  • You can iron your pleats flat here too. Basically though when in doubt, IRON EVERYTHING! :D

  • One last little thing is remember that 1 inch you left free for the hidden zipper? Pin this

  • bit down out of the way so it won’t get caught up when you sew on your waist band

  • and well come back to this bit later. Cut out another rectangle of fabric whose

  • dimensions are the same as the width of your pleated skirt. So mine is 32 inches, and whose

  • height is about double the thickness that you want your waist band to be. Fold this

  • in half length-ways, right sides together. Then youre going to do a straight stitch

  • right down the length like this, and then turn the tube inside out when you are done,

  • and it’s a good idea to iron this flat. Then place the waist band on top of the skirt

  • right sides together. Pin it on so it’s lined to the top raw edge of the pleats. Attach

  • it to the skirt using a straight stitch, and go slowly while youre sewing here.

  • And that’s your waistband done! Fold your skirt over rights sides together

  • so that the end with the raw edge hidden under the pleat (that bit that you pinned out of

  • the way earlier) meets up with the raw edge at the other end of the skirt.

  • Pin these two together all the way down that length. Match up the zipper next to the skirt,

  • and make a mark where the zipper ends. So you would do a proper back-tack straight stitch

  • down this part of the skirt to attach these two ends of the skirt together, but above

  • the mark you would just do a very long basting stitch, which is a loose temporary stitch

  • to hold the fabrics together. Press this seam open and place your zipper

  • face down on top of the seam. Line the zipper teeth up with the seam, and pin it on one

  • side only. Then sew down the side that doesn’t have the pins on it. When you get to the bottom,

  • remove the pins, and sew back up the other side. So once youve sewn the zipper on,

  • the right side of your fabric skirt will look like this. Bust the zipper out of there by

  • ripping apart the basting stitch that you made before, and there’s your hidden zipper!

  • So you could add buttons in this step, but I’m going to use press studs because theyre

  • really easy to add to a garment. [Annotation: I also finished off the raw edges

  • of the waistband by folding them underneath, and sewing across]

  • I’m going to figure out where I want my press studs to go on the waistband so it will

  • close up the hidden zipper, and then I just attach them using a needle and a thread.

  • And so now my skirt closes up, awesome! And this is the finished result.

  • So that’s all there is to it, and if this video helped you out then please give me a

  • thumbs up, subscribe to my channel, and I’ll see you guys in my next video.

  • [outro music]

[Intro music]

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it