After twisting it up for pleating at the beginning of what ended up being a very eventful time for me, I am finally getting back to the Fortuny-style pleated gown (check the Fortuny tag for other posts). Last summer’s project becomes this summer’s project, and hopefully this leg of it won’t take as long as the last.
First I had to unwind this fabric that had been locked in a tube sock for 6 months. It took about a month to dry completely, and I was a little afraid it might have gone moldy in the process. No such bad luck:
It took about 2 hours to pull all the thread out and off of it.
Gathering every ~3″ or so did result in very tight pleats but as with my polyester version, the gathering places are pretty obvious, creating horizontal lines that aren’t evident in Fortuny’s originals. I’m hoping these might become less obvious after the fabric is unwound for a while:
Also due to broken threads or gathering placed too far apart I wound up with the odd unpleated “blob”, which I’m accepting as just one of those imperfections of the handmaking process:
My original 45″ wide fabric pleated down to 7″ wide, and shortened by about a yard and a half(!)
My research suggests that Fortuny made his gown of 4-5 widths of already-pleated fabric, sewn selvedge to selvedge by hand. Given that I am not 21″ around, it had better stretch some! I hope it gains a little length as well as at 5’6″ I don’t think I can get more than 3 widths fabric out of 6 1/2 yards.
To these ends I’m letting the fabric relax for a week or so, first horizontally and then vertically. I don’t really have room for either so I’m having to improvise.
TL;DR: the fabric lost a lot of width and a good chunk of length in the pleating process, suggesting that should I do this again I start with 10 yards! It’s very finely pleated, though somewhat unevenly. It needs to relax some before I can cut it.
