This is my fear with cartridge pleating! I’m a very beginning sewer and I figured a cartridge pleated skirt would let me practice some hand sewing as well as straight lines on a machine, but… I don’t know how long to make the skirt piece so that my 1/4″ pleats won’t end up either way too short or too long. I’m not worried about anything being exactly math-ey, just worried that I’m so inexperienced it ultimately won’t fit.

I haven’t seen cartridge pleating on a bodice before, in my research. I’d recommend regular gathering or stroked gathers, which one can learn in my Hand Stitches class. Stroked gathers are similar to cartridge pleats and probably the technique most used on mid-19th century gathered bodices.

Yay! Hope it all turned out well.

I want to sew a robe a l’anglaise too… there’s a Georgian Festival in Stamford here in the UK in September and I’m becoming more and more tempted to have my first foray into the 18th century.
It’s funny… the 18th century didn’t appeal to me at all until about six months ago, when I first wore a simple robe a l’anglaise that would have been worn by a Quaker woman in the 1770s, as part of a voluntary project I’ve been doing with a local museum. I think it’s partly that I learnt through this project that the 18th century was more than just extravagance, autocracy and slavery, which are the associations I had with it until fairly recently… and also that I saw that 18th-century fashions weren’t all ridiculously over the top, at least no more than those of any other recent century in Western history.
The 1840s is also on my hit list, so your cartridge-pleating tips will come in use in any case, Jennifer!
Cat, I hope your robe a l’anglaise worked out in the end and that your fingers recovered. 🙂

I was hoping there was some way I wouldn’t have to undo the whole thing but oh well! I will try making the pleats deeper, that should do the trick. Thank you for your help!

Ouch! Is it possible to take out (cut out) a narrow panel of the skirt? That’s not my first choice. How about making a few of the pleats deeper on the inside to take up the excess? I’ve not sewn a robe a l’anglaise (but want to!) so don’t have experience myself with those pleats.