Help with Great Kilt/Belted Plaid.

**BearTheSkald** · 8th July 17, 03:53 AM

Hey,

New to the site but I did some scouting about and there seems to be a lot of active and helpful members on here.

I've been looking to get a great kilt for a while now but have had little to no luck finding one online. I've seen a few posts here with people asking advice about them but I was wondering if any of you know where is a good place to get one or a good place to get enough plaid for one.

I'm based in Scotland so a UK or Scottish site/place would be preferable. I recently made an enquire into Scotweb as they do custom tartan and I mentioned about wanting to buy plaid for a great kilt, I'd be able to get the length but I'm not sure if they'd be able to get the height needed.

Any help would be much appreciated, if there is a place that does custom tartan then thats great but if not I have no problem with chosing a tartan that grabs me or has a good story behind it as my clan tartan isn't very braw! (In my opinion)

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
Bear.

**Father Bill** · 8th July 17, 04:48 AM

Can't help with the tartan, but ...

Welcome to the "Great Rabble"!

**HixwithanX** · 8th July 17, 06:39 AM

Hello and welcome!

As for the height, my GK is two, four-meter strips sewn together. That's how you get the height you want and there's nothing wrong with doing that way given the width of ancient looms. FYI, mine was made by Geoffrey (Tailor).

As for the tartan, I am and will always remain in the "wear-what-you-want" camp!

Regards,

**Luke MacGillie** · 8th July 17, 08:20 AM

Traditionally a great kilt would be made of 2 lengths of single width (aprox 27ish inches) butted together into one large piece. If you want something right now, buying double wide, the current industry standard for tartan weaving will basically cut the need to sew 2 pieces together.

Im 5 foot 8, 175 lbs. 3 yards of double wide tartan is more than enough for my great kilt. In the period, this would be the equivalent of 6 yards of tartan, which is half of the 2 year allowance of tartan for a member of a Highland Regiment in the British army of the 18th Century.

I went ahead and just ran a couple lines of backstiching to my tartan to hold the pleats in place so I dont have to pleat it every morning, and can actually put it on inside a wedge tent in the rain if I have to. I am going to pull that out and re sew box pleats so it will look like an interior drawstring great kilt vice an exterior belt loops one.

**CamelCody** · 8th July 17, 05:03 PM

I bought mine from Hamilton Dry Goods. It isn't a GK per se, but it is 4yards x 54" of 100% wool tartan fabric so I guess that qualifies it. They have few different patterns but nothing clan specific, which some would say makes it more historically accurate. I've been pretty happy with it. They're a bit far from where you are (White County, Tennessee). The website is www.hamiltondrygoods.com
I think I paid around $40 USD for mine. Good luck and welcome to the world of kilts, slàinte math!

**Sir William** · 8th July 17, 07:41 PM

If you want your great kilt in a specific tartan, and since you are in Scotland, I'd check with some of the weavers such as Lochcarron to see what they might have. If you don't want a specific tartan, then check some of your local fabric stores to see what they might have on the shelf. I got a generic piece of tartan (no association with any clans or organizations) from Geoffrey's a few years ago that has served me well.

As others have said, all you really need is about 3-4 yards/meters of double width fabric (about 150cm wide). This can be either from fabric woven to that width, or from two pieces of single width fabric joined along the long edge.

**derosa** · 8th July 17, 07:43 PM

Check out http://wooltartan.com/remnants-2/ there's one there at 15$ a meter. I think its a good looking, generic tartan that would work well. I've been eyeing it for the same reason and while it isn't cheap, with shipping 20 a meter assuming 4 meters, its a great price for wool tartan with a proper selvedge. Even their other fabrics, which are a little light would be good as a lighter weight belted plaid seems better for roving about a Ren Fair or something similar.