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Can you shorten a kilt/skort?

martagon | Posted in General Discussion on

My daughter wears a combination skort/kilt as part of her school uniform.  Of course, it is tooooo long.  (I remember being a teen once, long ago, and I wore my skirts short then too.)  So, I’m not arguing with her on this.

The problem she’s having is that when she rolls the waistband, the pleats on the back stick out over her bum (She’ s a petite  80 lbs, so it’s the pleats, not the bum)

Do you think we would have any luck shortening it?  There’s a professional dressmaker in town who could do it. We can only shorten it so much, as some teachers are stricter than others  (Official school rules say that it can only be 4″ above the knee if the student is kneeling.  Honored more in the breach than in the observance.)

I can just see the designers sitting around a table – – hmmm, if we design the waistband this way – it’ll look like crap when they roll it.   LOL

Replies

  1. mygaley | | #1

    Yes this can be done.  My dgd requires garment one size larger than her waist, and they are also too long.  Normally I remove the waistband, put the garment on her held up by an elastic tie and pull the garment up until the crotch fits, and the length is right, front and back, then pin in darts.  This normally shortens the garment enough, also.  Almost any level of sewing skill can shorten these clothes, just be sure to have a try-on before the length is cut off.  Galey

     

  2. Teaf5 | | #2

    I agree with mygaley that, whenever you shorten a pleated skirt, you should do so by lowering the waistband, not turning up a new hem. Commercially pleated fabric is hemmed before it is pleated, so if you try to turn up a new hem at a shorter length, the bottoms of the pleats will not lie flat.

    To see what I mean, fold up an inch on her skirt and see how folds on the turned up part are exactly opposite the folds on the skirt; unless the pleats are originally not very sharp, you proabably aren't going to get those opposing folds to lie flat together. I once tried to hand baste, steam, iron, and press under weights the re-hemmed pleats of a skirt; it took hours over the course of two weeks, and the original creases popped right back out.

    If you decide to lower the waistband, you might want to run a basting line across the pleats just belove the new waistline before detaching them from the original one so that they don't slip open during the re-application process.

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