Drapery panels with two-finger Euro pleats on my worktable today!

In the workroom industry, we talk about pattern match. What is it and how do we do it? Well, there are two different types of pattern match. The first and most important pattern match is when you join two pieces of fabric together. In the picture above, center, you barely see a seam where two pieces of fabric are sewn together. That is a pattern match and you want it to be as perfect as possible. When researching this, there are several different ways to achieve this, but the results are the most important! The pattern match for this Ikat fabric, was a success!

The second type of pattern match is referred to as “pleating to pattern.” Again, depending on your fabric pattern, this can turn out lovely or boring. Pleating to pattern refers to every pleat having the exact same pattern element so that when you see the forward fold, they are all alike. A match! Sometimes, if the fabric has a large motif (like a damask), you would not pleat the center of that motif, you might pleat every other (as in center-end-center-end) of the pattern. This motif will “repeat” across the entire drapery.

In the case of this Ikat pattern, I tried it all, pleating to each element of the motif. I found that I had too many favorite color choices throughout the fabric. My eyes started to hurt. If I pleated with “this” pattern, a color from another element would be lost in the back fold.

In cases like this, I would take pictures of different ways to pleat to pattern and send the pictures to the client and let them choose. Here, I was the client and these were going in my lakehouse dining room. The “back fold” mattered to me because these panels would be open most of the time. I decided that I wanted ALL the colors to show. I wanted a messy look.

PS: After the fact, I checked with Susan Woodcock about this issue and she gave me her blessing. Susan and Ceil DiGuglielmo have a wonderful podcast on pattern matching if you want to check it out! They go into a lot more detail. I have never been able to tell which one is the comedian and which one is the side-kick! They are both hilarious!

PPS: For more information on pleating to pattern, Leatherwood Design Co has several blog posts about this topic!