Needing advice on pleating to the sett

[Yuri909]

Hello all,

I'm very new to the world of kilt wearing and in fact I have yet to even don one yet. I just ambitiously ordered a 7 meter double width piece of gorgeous modern Armstrong and can't wait to wear it as a belted plaid (the guy who runs a Scottish shop by Grandfather Mountain here in NC called me a glutton for punishment). My problem is I honestly find pleating to the sett more attractive than the stripe and after spending the last hour trying to find instructions on how to do to the sett... Google has failed me. So I was wondering if anyone knows any good online resources I may have simply overlooked? It seems like the internet is all about the box or the stripe. Thanks for any help you can provide!

[David Thorpe]

Get a copy of The Art of Kilt-making. Among other things it contains a comprehensive section on pleating to the sett. Well worth the 35 bucks.

And welcome to the circus.

[New World Czech]

You have enough to make two kilts. 7-8 yards of single width length was cut in half and sewn together to make a 3 1/2-4 yard double width plaid and then worn, pleating was however it ended up when you gathered them. So you can have a belted plaid and sew the rest into another more modern kilt.

[Chas]

If I am reading your post correctly, you are wanting to pleat a great kilt to the sett.

I don't think that can be done - that's why you can't find instructions. You pleat it and what you get is what you get.

Regards

Chas

[usonian]

I don't think that can be done - that's why you can't find instructions. You pleat it and what you get is what you get.

I suppose it could be done with a great kilt (seconding The Art of Kiltmaking for instructions on pleating to sett), but it would be a very painstaking thing to do every time you wanted to put it on. I think I've heard mention of people permanently stitching pleats at the waist on great kilts here, but given that it's a "rougher" garment (fewer pleats, not pressed to a crisp knife edge) the effect of pleating to sett might largely be lost anyway.

[Yuri909]

If you truly think it's too much I doubt it's too late to contact them to take it down to 5 or 6.

[Yuri909]

You have enough to make two kilts. 7-8 yards of single width length was cut in half and sewn together to make a 3 1/2-4 yard double width plaid and then worn, pleating was however it ended up when you gathered them. So you can have a belted plaid and sew the rest into another more modern kilt.

While all of you guys are considerably more experienced and savvy than I in this area, everywhere I look online says that for my rather broad/wide waist and height of 6'4'' I will need around 5-6 to do a good belted plaid. The more literature I read about older kilts constantly refers to the material being closer to 7. If to the sett is unrealistic for the belted I'll accept the judgement of the court and do to the line. But I can't even find instructions for pleating to the sett for any style of kilt. And the reason I asked on the forum was because I wanted to see if there were any free resources haha. I am Scottish after all. Very cautious with money - Craig Ferguson. (Even though this post clearly shows I'm a little overboard at times). I am intending the belted plaid to be my warm weather kilt, a million things go on up here fall through winter and I'm daft enough to don.

[Pleater]

If you have a 50 inch waist, then you will have enough fabric for 20 pleats about 9 inches for each pleat, a couple of feet for each of the two aprons and two 18 inch under apron pleats. The under apron pleats mean that you sit down and the aprons fall between your knees - also stepping over obstacles doesn't pull the aprons apart.

The edges will be some 270 inches long - fine at the knee if the belt or sewing holds the middle in folds, but the top edge will most likely be all over the place.

I can't visualise 7 metres of double width fabric as a warm weather kilt, unless it is rather lightweight. Even then - it is equivalent in size to two or three blankets.

Traditional free folded kilts were not pleated to anything - they were simply folded as convenient, so it would be anachronistic to create pleats which conformed to a pattern.

However, pleating to the sett is not difficult once you grasp the concept that each time you create a pleat you lose one sett's worth of the fabric. If you create 24 pleats you lose 24 setts from the length, and the visible parts of the pleats will give the illusion of complete sets - so a tartan with a sett size of 8 inches will appear to show 3 complete setts across 24 inches of pleats - though of course you can adjust the way the sett is positioned so as to get a prominent band centre back, or two stripes balanced each side, and you can cheat another couple of inches into the pleats by making the visible parts slightly wider, so there is just under one sett hidden - it is actually easier to do this than to keep the pattern exact.

The Armstrong tartan is nice - I have some of the ancient variant awaiting time to work on it, but just 4 yards of double width is quite a substantial amount of fabric.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: