I've finally gotten my hands on some MacLachlan tartan to make into a kilt for myself, and I'm trying to sort how I want to pleat it. I had settled on pleating to the sett, but am now leaning to the stripe for two reasons - one pleating to the sett, cheating some pleats, I was able to make 17 or 19 pleats. I'm sure someone could cheat it better than I, but that's what I came up with.

The second, and more important reason is that I spent this past Saturday at the highland games in Glasgow, KY. While there, the kilts that I found most pleasing to the eye were all pleated to the stripe; they just seemed to emphasize the swish better. So that's the direction I've decided to go, but I'm struggling with the decision on how to pleat it, exactly.

For those unfamiliar, MacLachlan is a Black Watch based tartan, and the material I have has a sett of about 14". Pleating to the stripe that often works in Black Watch (black stripe in green) doesn't work so well in MacLachlan as it's green stripe in dark blue and that gives the lovely lawn chair effect.
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Pleating to the double-black in red would result in pleats that are around 6.5" deep - which I don't have a problem with, but we're back in the neighborhood of 17-19 pleats. Totally fine if that's where I decide to go, but I wanted more...

...so I'm tossing around the idea of pleating to what I'm going to call the billiard-ball pleating - pleating to the stripes and solids. This would give me up to ~33 pleats if I felt like sewing so many, but I'm not 100% sure whether I like it. I wanted to see what the reactions would be from you folks. Thoughts?
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