Well, I just picked up my mail and got my SWK Thrifty Irish National.

This isn't my first time buying from Jerry. I've got hose and one of his brilliant cargo sporrans before. This is however my first kilt purchase with him. It won't be my last, I think.

The good:

Oh my, what a wonderful tartan. The fabric is soft and the feel is amazing. The kilt is pleated to the sett, and despite the fears I had, the pleats don't just look like gathers at the waist. The selvedge is is good. Better, in fact than the selvedge on the material that I got from Scotland. (Not by much, but it is better.) The length actually suits me just fine as I prefer to wear my kilts up at the bottom of my rib cage.

The bad:

There is no deep pleat and no reverse pleat on this kilt. I'm very disappointed in this, as it makes the aprons hang differently than I like. (No deep or reverse pleat is why I don't wear the first kilt I made very much.) The waistband seems to have some kind of crinkly plastic in it that kind of disturbs me.

I'll be wearing this kilt for a week or two as is, and then I'm going to re-tailor it into a different kind of kilt entirely. I had been just going to taper and sew down the fell, but with the lack of deep and reverse pleats, this kilt needs to become something else entirely to fit me properly. (NOTE: This is because I ordered a kilt that was at the very bottom of my size range while I was in the very top of its size range. There is absolutely no faulting Jerry on this.)

So, sometime the next few weeks I'm going to carefully dismantle my thrifty kilt and make my first box pleat.