Military Box-Pleats: some questions for the rabble.

[Dixiecat]

or another person could say another form of knife pleat, as a box pleat actually contains 2 knife pleats back to back.

The simplest element in any tailored pleat is the single fold, which when seen in a kilt is....... the knife pleat!

Well, actually..........what makes a box pleat a box pleat, is the box. Hell, pinch pleated drapes are modified box pleats. If you take the box and fold it one way or t'other you get a knife pleat. And, if you fold it another way, you get double box pleats. A very versatile element the pleat is.

Matt, no one is disputing what box pleats are or really how they're made, what I'm seeing here is the confusion on the evolution of the box into a military box when you add all that extra fabric. Can you post pics of how you do a military? It's obvious from the images that you've posted that you can't take a box pleat as you have made it and then create a military box pleat.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Can you post pics of how you do a military? It's obvious from the images that you've posted that you can't take a box pleat as you have made it and then create a military box pleat.

I don't have pictures handy, but perhaps I can adequately describe the difference.

Ok, let's start by looking again at this diagram Barb T drew.


You can see that in a four yard box pleated kilt, once your pleats are sewn in, the next step is to take the inside "loop" created by the pleat, and open it up and flatten it out. .You are looking in this diagram at the pleats from the bottom up, keep in mind. When I am actually doing this, I am working with the inside of the kilt facing up on the work table, and I'm working on the top part of the pleats, the part above the fell.

What I do when I "open up" the box pleats is take the center part of the "loop" you see in the diagram and line that up with the line of stitching on the pleat itself. This gives you just as much depth on one side of the pleat as the other. When I have all the pleats pinned in place like this, I sew a line of stitching across the top of the whole thing, and a couple lines of steeking across the body of the pleats, to hold them all in place.

One thing that becomes apparent when you see this done is that the box pleat really is not made from two pleats lying face-to-face, but is actually a single pleat, the inside cloth of which is folded to go in two directions. (I realize this runs counter to some of what I have written in recent posts, but there I was talking about the visual end result and here I am talking about the process).

So what do you do when you are making a kilt like this from more yardage? Well, the outside "face" of the pleat will be smaller, by some degree. And the inside "loop" of the pleat will be larger. You cannot, physically, open the loop the same way, so that the middle of it lies over the stitching of the pleat, giving equal depth in both directions. It would cause problems when you tried to do the same thing to the next pleat over. There would be no room for overlap. So what you do is to open up the loop so that the depth of the pleat going one way is only as deep as the pleat face next to it is wide. In other words, if you are dealing with 1" pleats, your pleat depth would be no more than 1" wide. And in the other direction, of course, your pleat would be much deeper. But in opening up all the "loops" the same way like this, all the deep parts of the pleats run the same direction, and so they can overlap each other.

The other difference, in terms of construction, is that with additional cloth you will of course want to cut out the excess material from the inside of the pleats. But that is a function of the amount of cloth used, and not the style of pleating. It would be the same for a knife pleated kilt, as well.

I don't know if that makes it clear enough for you. I have a couple of six-yard box pleated kilts coming up in my order queue so perhaps when I get to those I can take photos of the inside of the pleats "in progress" to better show what I mean.

[OC Richard]

the deep parts of the pleats run the same direction, and so they can overlap each other.
I have a couple of six-yard box pleated kilts coming up in my order queue so perhaps when I get to those I can take photos of the inside of the pleats "in progress" to better show what I mean.

That's cool Matt, I'd love to see those 6-yard boxpleated kilts.

This painting has always epitomised to me the military kilt par excellence, the mid-19th century boxpleated kilt of the 79th Foot in 1852. Matt, can you estimate from the image how much yardage was used? I presume that at this time the yardage had increased to the point that the "military box pleat" with its overlap was used

[Dixiecat]

One thing that becomes apparent when you see this done is that the box pleat really is not made from two pleats lying face-to-face, but is actually a single pleat, the inside cloth of which is folded to go in two directions. (I realize this runs counter to some of what I have written in recent posts, but there I was talking about the visual end result and here I am talking about the process).

It might go counter to what you've been saying, but this was the point I was trying to make earlier. It's the way you fold the pleat that gives the outward affect. You could fold two knife pleats together to get a box pleat, but people in the sewing world would generally not do this as it creates a minute gap where the two pleats meet.

So what do you do when you are making a kilt like this from more yardage? Well, the outside "face" of the pleat will be smaller, by some degree. And the inside "loop" of the pleat will be larger. You cannot, physically, open the loop the same way, so that the middle of it lies over the stitching of the pleat, giving equal depth in both directions. It would cause problems when you tried to do the same thing to the next pleat over. There would be no room for overlap. So what you do is to open up the loop so that the depth of the pleat going one way is only as deep as the pleat face next to it is wide. In other words, if you are dealing with 1" pleats, your pleat depth would be no more than 1" wide. And in the other direction, of course, your pleat would be much deeper. But in opening up all the "loops" the same way like this, all the deep parts of the pleats run the same direction, and so they can overlap each other.

This is what needs illustration, and I look forward to seeing your pics of the 6yd mbp kilts.

I have to say that I'm enjoying this thread. I've missed the collaboration atmosphere of the sewing conferences and conventions I used to work.