Pleater Board

(don't know original poster!) sent in by Lin in Chesapeake City

Here are the instructions someone posted for the pleater board sometime ago. HTH! I haven't made it myself yet.

Pleater board 

The finished measurements are about 17 1/2" wide by 10" or so.  I doubled the length of mine and it's 17 1/2 by 21"-just right for me.

SUPPLIES:

1/2 yd. 1/4" horizontal stripe fabric...

2 3/4 yds. 1" lace optional)

½ yd. ribbon of your choice

Fusible interfacing to fuse fabric in half (selvage to selvage)

19 yds. of 1/2" belting (the stuff you find at the fabric store to make ladies' belts from-if they don't have 1/2" ask them to order it for you-most stores will-if not, perhaps someone from Dritzonline could tell you where to get it.)

1. Fold fabric in half selvage to selvage and fuse with the fusible web.

2. Serge or zig-zag the raw edges and the selvage edge.

3. Starting at the 5th or so stripe from the bottom of the fabric,sew the belting width wise along the stripe as close to the next stripe as you can get. (Try to be as accurate as you can when sewing the belting down, your pleats will only be as accurate as your placement of the belting.)

4. Cut the belting at the end of sewing down the width of a stripe, leaving approximately 1/4" of belting. (There will be less wasteof the belting this way.)

5. Continue sewing the belting across the width of EVERY color stripe for the entire length of the fabric or until you run out of belting. This will vary some depending on the width of your fabric-you should be able to get at least 10" of louvers with a 44"to 45" fabric. IF YOU WANTA LONGER BOARD BE SURE TO BUY MORE BELTING! Stop sewing about an inch from the top.

6.Trim the edges. (OPTIONAL)

7. Serge or zig-zag aroung all 4 edges of pleater board.8. Apply lace around all 4 edges of the front side of the board using a zig-zag stitch.

9. Using your sewing machine, tack down the small piece of ribbon on the back of the pleater board about 1/2" from the top, halfway between the 2 long sides.