Adding a Kick Pleat to an A-line Skirt Pattern

A-line skirts are adorable. They are however,  a little plain, and with my girl's kung fu moves and all the climbing she does, a little restrictive. So, lets add a kick pleat, shall we?

First, we need a basic a-line skirt pattern.(Here's an adult-size one by McCall's to give you an idea.) I'll be using my own pattern, but the steps are the same using a purchased pattern. We don't need to alter the front piece, so just set that aside for now.

The back pattern piece will pretty much look like this:

To add in the kick pleat, we are going to add a small rectangle at the bottom of the skirt pattern. Like so:

My rectangle is 1.5 inches wide by 4.5 inches long.
Now, when we lay out the pattern on the fabric, we place the long edge of the added-on rectangle on the fold. Then we cut out the fabric. Unfolded, it will look like this:

That's just to illustrate the cut. Keep the piece folded because we're going to stitch now. Stitch (using whatever seam allowance your pattern needs) from the waist down to about half inch past where the rectangle starts. I've illustrated that with a white dot.

Press the seam allowance open and press the rectangle into an inverted pleat.

That's how it looks from the inside. Here's the outside:

And from the bottom:

Pin the pleat down to hold it in place. Now let's stitch along the top of the pleat so it's held down permanently. I did it from the inside, about a quarter inch from the top edge, like so:

You have a kick pleat! Now, just finish the rest of the skirt as your pattern instructs. Then, go play.