HACK: The Teatime Romper – Pleat Detail

Hey all! Jeanine here today to show you how I got the pleat detail front on the top!

There is the easy way – and the much harder and more confusing way that you use if you are tight on fabric and home bound thanks to a blizzard.

First off, you’ll need the Teatime Romper sewing pattern. If you haven’t got it yet, you can get it from – https://rebecca-page.com/product/romper-pdf-sewing-pattern/.

Let’s start with the very easy way to get pleat room – Add 3-4 inches to the top of the pattern piece – or more if you want a LOT of pleats… but honestly since the Teatime Romper is a gathered front I think keeping the pleats to just a handful is optimal.

and then you fold and iron, fold and iron until you get down to where the romper front is the height of the original pattern piece.

**I strongly recommend sewing the pleats down on the inside – where you won’t see the stitching from the front so they don’t go all poofed out when you thread the elastic through for the front.

Then do a basting stitch along the sides of your pleats to keep them down.

The hard way is cutting a separate rectangle that is 5 inches tall, pleating it down to 3 and cutting 3″ off the top of the bodice front. Did that confuse you? It made my brain hurt just trying to type it – but at the time I was able to visualize it so easily. I took pics since it shows the pleating cleaner.

And then basted down the sides and sewn on.

With a little trim to hide the fact that I added on a section for the pleats instead of doing things the proper way and cutting it longer to pleat. Just goes to show you there is indeed more than one way to (metaphorically) skin a cat… What a horrible saying that is …. If you have a better one for me to use – please – leave a comment!

Once again, just to be clear, sew those pleats down!!!! Otherwise they will become lost once the elastic is in place!