How to make Kylo Ren Pleats
Hi Guys, I’ve had a few people ask me how I made the pleats on my Kylo Ren outfit (under-tunic and sleeves), so I’ve complied a quick tutorial on how to tackle this horrifying task.
Alright, there are a few ways to do this, but the method I’ve used for my outfit requires two separate pieces of fabric. This overall looks and feels neater although it can be a bit of a hassle.
PART I: For this example, my “pleated layer” is a heavy black cotton and my “foundation layer” is a paper towel (it was the only non-black piece of fabric I had around). Don’t forget you’ll be folding the pleats so you’ll need substantially more “pleated layer” fabric than “foundation layer”. You will need about 3x as much pleated fabric as you will need foundation. It’s better to err on the safe side though, and go for around 3.5x as much.
Pin the two fabrics together with the “pleated” on top. You can have the “foundation layer” cut to the shape of your patterns. I would keep the pleated fabric in a rectangle though.
PART II: Gather up some “pleated-layer” fabric while keeping the “foundation layer” as straight and flat as possible (I usually just tape it to the table or pin it to the floor). Make a fold whatever size you want and pin it down.
PART III: Iron that sucker down. Very important. I’ve found that if you don’t iron after every pleat, you get very ugly, wavy, and disproportionate pleats. You must iron it down with a high heat to get to to crease. Once you iron it, lift UP the fold and pin the “pleated” to the “foundation”. This essentially holds the pleat in place on the foundation.
PART IV: Rinse and repeat. Make sure that each new pleat made under the previous one is SUBSTANTIALLY far underneath so that when you go to sew it, you don’t pull the pleat out.
Follow the pattern: Fold + Pin pleat itself + Iron + Pin under pleat
…fold, pin, iron, pin. I’ve gone through a lot of trial and error to find that rhythm.
PART V: SEW IT DOWN! Lift up the pleat and sew the two pieces of fabric together. Pull the pins out as you go. If you have a very large piece of fabric, you can use painter’s tape to hold the pleats in place. (Tape adjacent to the pleats).
You should get something that looks like this in the end after you’ve taken out the pins and tape. Iron the entire thing down again to get those creases straight.
Congrats! You’ve make pleats! Perfect for making the sleeves and under tunic of our favorite angsty edgelord.
Put on your favorite SciFi movies to play in the background and happy pleating!
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