Skirts away

My main mission this week is to finish the skirt and try to gather as much material into it as possible. However this has proven more than a task as I need to fit 7meters of material into the skirt and where my actress is quite slim, it means a lot of pleating. I spent three days pleating the tops of the material with 1cm pleats all the way around, pinning and pleating as I went. After this they were all tacked down with a running stitch. Once all the seams were matched up, I found that there still wasn't enough material in the skirt and the crinoline could be seen through the material. As my knife pleats are each matched up, I have been told that it was not the most effective way to gather all the material. Apparently if I overlap the pleats and increase the size of them, more fabric will be retained in the skirt. Mandy, one of our lecturers has said she will demonstrate how to do this after the fitting.