What your friend said is basically true. The bottom edge of your kilt is the finished edge of the cloth it was made from so the "proper" way to raise the hem is to deconstruct the kilt, trim material from the top and put it back together. Just about as much work as making it from scratch. All that said I have a kilt that I spec'd out just an inch too long and even hiking it up didn't work for me. So my choices were hem the kilt for $50 or rebuild the kilt for $250 (basically the origional cost of the kilt). I have a hemmed kilt now. The only way to tell is to notice the sett does't go all the way to the bottom now.