Ribbon pleats are a little different from normal knife pleats. The distance between every other fold line is a different length. In the cases where every pleat takes one inch of unpleased material; in a normal knife pleat the spaces between each fold would be 1/3″-1/3″-1/3″ but with a ribbon pleat which also takes 1″ the spaces are 3/8″-3/8″-1/4″. Therefore, the part you see on a normal knife pleat is 1/3″ but with a ribbon pleat you only see 1/4″ per every pleat and for every inch of pleated ribbon you need 4 pleats and ~4″ of un-pleated ribbon. Where as with a normal knife pleat to get an inch of pleated material you only need 3 pleats and ~3″ of un-pleater material.
The reason for using a Ribbon pleat over a normal Knife pleat is that you can make tight turns and not stretch the pleats so much that they lay flat around the outer edge.
From my website, you get a kit with a preprinted pieces of card stock then, all you need to do is fold them, and bond the folded card stock (with HeatnBond) to another un-pleated piece of card stock (the kit comes with all required supplies). You will be able to use this pleater repeatedly for cockades, or trim for costumes or other ribbon decorations. Right now I’m selling two different Ribbon Pleater Boards, a 1/4″ pleater kit and a 1/8″ pleater kit. The 1/4″ pleater board is a long narrow board and the 1/8″ board is wide and short.
Link to Ribbon Pleater kit order page
Using a pleater in a straight line
There are several things you can make by pleating your ribbon or fabric in a straight line on a pleater. perhaps the most often used would be a pleated cockade. As example the cockade below is a simple pleated cockade similar to those seen on hats from the 18thC. It was pleated on a ribbon pleater with multiple layers of folded fabric strips of different widths sewn together . The edge of the sewn sides are gathered in a way to create a very small circle in the center. But as you can see the outer edge of the pleated material is not stretched out. There are other ways to make a pleated cockade, see alternative pleated cockade below.
If you look at the edges of the sleeves, the edge of the bodice and the neckline you can see some purple knife pleats. I made a 1/3″ normal knife pleat board for this project. The pleats were make with 6″ wide strips of silk taffeta pressed in half longways and sewn down the cut edge. Then I made about 30 yards of the pleated trim. Doing this pleating by hand would have taken more than twice the time. These were pleated in a straight line. If you have a project with pleats and can’t get a pleater board to use with the
measurements you want, let me know and I can make a pleater kit for you. You can usually find pleater boards with normal knife pleats at 1/4″ and 1/2″.
Using a pleater with the ribbon at an angle
When you have a wide pleater board (~11″) like my 1/8″ pleater you can pleat in a straight line or on an angle which creates a very different looking cockade or line of pleats. Below is a mid-20thC felt hat with a faux wing that starts in a petersham cockade and then trails off with pleated petersham on an angle to follow the edge of the faux wing.
Just before the edge of the pleats drops below and around the felt wing you can get a look at the stitches that control the distance apart the pleats are on this edge. When really tight together the pleats form the round cockade then later the edge of the felt wing.
Above is an example of an angle pleated cockade similar to the grey one above it. Noelle P. send a photo of this one she started in a Candace Kling class. To make this cockade you have to anchor the pleats on the outside edge by machine stitching while the pleats are still taped. Then sew the other edge (as you can see in this photo) just inside the ribbon’s edge on the edge of each pleat. If Noelle had gathered the stitches really tightly (as tight as possible) the pleats would have wrapped and spiraled around the first pleat to form a tight spiraled circle.
There are some other things you might want to do with ribbon or fabric pleated at an angle. One is as an edging to a hat or garment.
For this straw Victorian Brimless I chose to edge the head opening with a pleated taffeta that was pressed in half long ways, sewn near the cut edge and pleated with a 1/2″ pleater on an angle. The pleater was not a Ribbon Pleater but a normal 1/2″ pleater.
The pleats for the edge trim on this hat were made in this 1/2″ standard pleater.
The neck and center front trim for this Reconstruction Era Jacket was made by pleating some 7/8″ wide petersham on an angle on the same 1/2″ pleater as above. The edge pleats along the cuff and the hem and the shoulder trim are box pleated faille fabric were done by hand. Box pleats can’t be make on a pleater like knife pleats can. Because the pleats are make with a ribbon and not fabric both sides can show and it does not be sewn into a seam or the inside of a hat and the cut edge covered with the lining.
It is possible to do these angle pleats by hand for a very short length. I did these by hand.
I chose a brown grosgrain ribbon for the band and decided I wanted a pleated grosgrain ribbon edge. I only had the wide grosgrain which would have been too wide for the edge but if I pleated it on a bias that would narrow it down and give it an interesting edge.
To make the pleated ribbon decorative edge I made a cardboard measuring tool.
The end is at 45° and there is a clip every 1/2″ on both sides.
With the guide I could make a series of lines across the ribbon every 1/2″ very quickly.
Then I pressed the pleats into the ribbon along those lines. The pen is a heat away pen, so they disappeared as I pressed. Pins were involved.
I needed ~48 inches of the trim.
Finished hat; I adjusted the trim so that more of it was on the inside brim than on the outside edge. Making these by hand was not all that difficult because they are wide and there were not all that many. I could never see doing as many as there are on the gray hat without a pleater board.