An interesting example of pleating to stripe

[Barb T]

Hi folks

I just finished a kilt for an XMarker in the Weathered Stewart Old Sett, and I thought it might make an interesting example of some of the issues that kiltmakers face in pleating kilts.

If you look at the first picture below, your first impression might be that the tartan sett (the repeat) is about 7-8", because the dark brown block with the narrow red stripe is repeated every 7-8". But, if you look more closely, you'll see that the block to the right of each dark brown block is different from the one to the left of it (one is tan with gray stripes and one is gray with tan stripes). The kilt actually has only one full repeat across the front, from the center of the gray block on the left to the center of the gray block on the right. This is an example of an A-B-A-C type tartan (dark brown block, gray block, dark brown block, tan block).

Anyway the sett here is 15". If you were to try to pleat this kilt to the sett, each pleat would be over 7" deep and would take up over 15" of tartan. If you had an 8-yard length, and 2 1/2 yards were used up in the apron, deep pleat, underapron, and inverted pleat, you'd have only 5 1/2 yards for pleats. 198" divided by 16" per pleat would give you only 12 pleats in the back of the kilt. That would be unacceptable.

The only real alternative here is to pleat this tartan to the red stripe in the dark brown block, because that block is repeated twice per sett. That's what I've done for the kilt, and the rest of the photos show various views of how the front and the back look together.

Cheers,

Barb