Starting a kilt, got questions!

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Hello all,

Well based on Alan's success, the state of my finances, and the desire to wear kilts more often, I am going to embark on a kilt making journey. I have read (and still reading) Barb's book and so far everything makes sense to me.
My goal is a kilt made somewhat in the traditional manner, but not in tartan, and I will not be adverse to using a sewing machine if it will reduce the time to complete these. I also may want to consider 2 slash pockets hidden in the pleats.

Here are the 2 materials that I am going to try:

A blue herringbone pattern:


And a light gray on a dark gray flannel backing:


Both have been washed and dried and are ready for cutting. I have 4 yards, double width, of the blue and 5 yards double width of the gray. Both are fairly stable with little or not stretch. The gray looks like it will take a crease nicely but not be too prone to creasing during daily use. The blue is less stiff and I am not sure how well it will hold pleats, but I like the color and pattern. It reminds me of this kilt

Since I got this off the discount table at the local fabric store, I am only out @ $10 for each piece of cloth, and theoretically I have enough for 2 kilts from each. My first question is related to that assumption. Will the blue be long/wide enough at 4 yards to make a decent kilt? Barb's book recommends 7 yards (3 1/2 double width) for a kilt with a 36-40" waist. Will I need to cut both of them in half and then stitch them together and hide the seam in a pleat in order to make an acceptable kilt? Remember that there is not pattern to match.

for reference, I am making a kilt for a 40" waist, 44" hips, and 24" length

Some other questions:

My actual hip measure is 44", but should I add some extra to that?
Assuming 40" waist and 44" hips, would the splits 22" apron/18" pleats at the waist and 21" apron/23" pleats at the hips sound about right?
The blue has a finished fringe selvedge edge. Doesn't show up to well in the picture, but I am thinking of leaving that as my finished edge at the bottom of the kilt and no hem. Any thoughts?
The gray will get a hem, I am thinking a simple 1/8" tuck under (it is a finished selvedge, but shows a white line similar to the kilt Graham just got from Rocky), and I think the hem will look better. Again, any thoughts or advice pro or con?
What about slash pockets? I don't mind wearing a sporran, but pockets would be nice for keys and change. Also nice if just stepping out informally and dno't want to bother with the sporran. Do others feel they are appropriate or worth the effort?

I realize that all advice and opionions will be worth what I am paying for them! I reserve the right to incorporate or reject any ideas, and you all can feel free to point out when I make stupid mistakes and follow that up by being stupid enough to post it here!

[Shay]

I find that making a mock-up in graph paper really helps.

With all the pleats, it's a little hard to keep track of exactly how much fabric you'll need, especially if you have to piece together two lengths and don't want the seam to show by making it an inside pleat edge...

Plus I can't tell you how many times I screwed up my math on pleats because of the first and last ones. I still can't wrap my head around the formula, but I can cut out a tiny kilt from graph paper to scale, no problem.

[Alan H]

First off, our waist, butt and length measurements are *exactly* the same.

~*~*I~Insert Twilight Zone Music, here...dooo-de-dooo-dooo, dooo-de-dooo-dooo)~*~*~

you can go a bit skimpy on the pleats and play it safe. Here's how my kilt laid out.

Waistband of the over-apron was 20 inches because my waist is 40 inches. Hey, I hadn't read Barb's book on splitting the measurements when I'd started this thing!!! LOLOL

Bottom of the over apron was more like 24 inches, though, since the over-apron is A-shaped. OK, so figure that 24 inches goes into the over apron and 24 inches goes into the under-apron. I added two more inches to the over apron because I folded over the right hand edge of the cloth and stitched it down with two lines of straight stitch. I let about half an inch of the raw edge hang out, and it frayed, which is what I wanted. OK, so ACTUALLY, I allotted 26 inches for the over-apron, but for rough calculations, 24, or two feet will do.

So the over apron and the under apron, combined use up four feet of cloth.

OK, let's work our way around the kilt that I made.

The first pleat I made on the left side I made 5.25 inches deep. That meant that 4 inches of the pleat was hidden under the apron, at the waistline and 1.25 inches of the pleat was visible. I made it, and the second pleat on the left side a bit fan-shaped to allow the kilt to curve around my waist more naturally. Look at pictures of kilts laid out flat and you'll see why. You can see some of that fan-shaping in the pics that I posted. I might have overdone it a bit, though but it looks OK.

HINT...make that first pleat that mostly lies under the over-apron more like 7-8 inches deep. This is something big that I learned on this kilt. Don't skimp on that first pleat that lies under the left edge of the apron. Take a look at your Stillwater, eh? That's a BIG pleat!

OK, I then made 17 pleats, each 3.25 inches deep. Two inches were hidden and 1.25 inches were showing. Why 17 pleats and 1.25 inches? Because my USA Kilts philabeg has 15 pleats that show 1.5 inches and it looks pretty good, but I wanted something that had slightly smaller, and more pleats. Yet for my first kilt I didn't want to sew 25 pleats. 17-19 seemed like a good compromise. Well half of my 40-inch wasitline (20 inches) divided into 17 pleats give a revealed pleat size of 1.18 inches, or close enough to 1.25 that I figured I'd go with it.

So across the back of my kilt I have 17 pleats, with two inches hidden and 1.25 inches showing for a total pleat depth of 3.25 inches. I tapered the pleats a very little bit up towards the waist, not even an eigth of an inch. I wish I'd done a bit more, but it was seriously hard to do this on the heavy canvas I was working with.

Anyway, how much material do the pleats take?

17 x 3.25 = 55.25 inches which is about 4.75 feet

BTW, not all of my pleats were *exactly* the same depth. They might vary by as much as a 1/4 of an inch. I had to make one deeper to hide a mistake I made with the seam ripper when I had to rip out a line of stitching I'd done in the wrong place. However, I was "reasonably close" to 2 inches all the way around.

At the bottom of the under-fold of the last pleat I ran out of material that I'd cut from one-half of the canvas I bought. Obviously I needed more, so I laid out the canvas again, and cut out a 2.5 foot length. Oh, to have made it 3 feet, but so be it. I matched it to the raw edge of the already-pleated material, stitched it in and used an overlock stitch to limit the fraying. Now that seam is in exactly the same position the first inner crease would be in for the last, box pleat on the right side of the kilt. It's totally invisible, even under close inspection (...unless the inspector gets INSIDE the kilt, and then I have other things on my mind besides a little fraying on a hem!)

OK, I made the box pleat about the right size, since I'd learned from my frugality on the other side. That box pleat is 7 inches deep, 3.5 inches one way and 3.5 inches the other way. Think about how a box pleat is constructed and you'll understand why that ate up 14 inches of material.

Now we move on to the under apron, and here's where I wish I'd cut more material. My under-apron is OK, but the bottom of it should be six inches longer. Somehow, magically more material disappeared into the kilt that I calculated it would. HINT....be generous on your allowances for the under-apron. Remember that my under-apron is supposed to be 24 inches, long, or 2 feet.

*WHEW*

so how much material did I use?

Over apron: 26 inches
"kick" or reverse pleat under left edge of over-apron: 5.25 inches
17 pleats 'round the back: 55.75 inches
Box pleat at right edge: 14 inches
under apron: 24 inches

TOTAL: 125 inches of material, or 10.42 feet or 3.5 yards.

HINT...do not cut out exactly how much you'll need and figure that there will be no issues. WRONG. Cut out a MINIMUM of an extra foot, maybe two. Material seemed to magically disappear as I put this thing together.

The only major change I'll make to the next single-color kilt is allotting more like 7 inches to the "kick" pleat. Maybe I'll make the pleats 2 inches deep with a 1-inch reveal, thereby giving me about 20-21 pleats 'round me buttocks.

The other change is to use a lighter material. That will be a ton easier to work with, and will also allow me to taper the pleats slightly up at the waistband, which will be nice.

Here's the honest truth about how I got started with my kilt. I copied Rocky's USA Kilts Philabeg. My waistband is exactly the same as the philabegs. As I got going on it I got some of my own ideas and incorporated them, but I started out to basically build a canvas USA Kilts philabeg. The USA Kilts philabeg is a good place to start because structurally it's a very simple kilt. What I wound up with is quite different from Rocky's kilt, but it provided a good starting point.

You can machine-stitch your kilts, KCW, but the lines of stitching will show. In a traditional tartan kilt that's a no-no, but in the more casual kilts that you're making, no biggie. Rocky's philabeg shows its stitiching. So does a Freedom Kilt, and so does a Utilikilt. So, no worries.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Alan,

That is awesome (for me at least) that we have the same measurements, it will take out some of the guesswork for me that you had to go through.

I was hoping that you would chime in with some good information and this is great. Not only is it some good detailed information, you have helped me visualize how it goes together. Quick question, I have been thinking about cutting my material to length, but leave the full width and trim the excess from the underapron after I have the apron and all the pleats in. Do you think that would work? Anybody else have an opinion?

I did not look closely at your pictures while wearing it (will try to see now) but where were you intending to wer this kilt, like a trad or at the hips like pants, and is that where it ended up when you were done?

RJI

Note to self, watch for when Alan gets tired with his kilts or maybe just some of them, might be able to get a good deal!

[Alan H]

This is how I decided on length. It just goes to show how UN-sopnhisticated I am.

I have two Stillwater kilts and I like 'em. They're 24' in length.
I have a USA Kilt philabeg. It's 24 inches in length. I like it.
I have a Bear Kilt formal Cut. It's 24 inches in length. I'm wearing it as I write this.

I think I'll make my kilts 24 inches in length.

OK, so how did I do this?

I washed my canvas and laid it out on the floor. Rocky's philabeg was in the other room. I looked at how Rocky did his waistband. Basically, he cuts the length you want out of one edge of the material, plus about 4 inches. He overlocks the raw edge (the edge he just cut, or ripped) , leaving the selvedge at the bottom of the kilt. Then He irons down the top of the kilt, folding over that extra four inches.

Well, that's pretty simple. Even *I* can figure this out, so that's what I did.

One suggestion, though. If you're going to do it this way and you're going to use velcro for the closure, sew the velcro on the inside of the over-apron BEFORE starting the kilt. You'll save yourself a mess of hand-stitching that way. Well, if you want to hide the velcro stitching and not have it show on the front of the over-apron, anyway.

Then again, you'll have to iron "around" the velcro to smooth things out, so maybe that's not such a good idea. I dunno.

[Shay]

Alan H- you reminded me of something funny- my sister ironing Velcro on a jacket to 'straighten it out' and ending up with a melted puddle of plastic years ago.

I modeled my kilt after an Amerikilt, doing many of the same things, figuring out the construction, adding a couple things I wanted in, etc. I'll try to tell how I made it in case you're interested.

The way I made my kilt (which had a waistband) was to sew the pleats in the fabric using the selvedge as the hem. I double-rolled one end to serve as an apron- that means I sewed down the edge, then folded that seam over and sewed it again to stop any of the fabric from unraveling and give the edge some weight. Twelve inches of fabric followed for the apron. Then I started my pleating, using a three/one knife pleat that was two inches deep. So every pleat took six inches of fabric- two for the top, two for the zigzag in the middle, and two for the bottom. Once I had enough pleats that I was ten inches or so away from the waist size I wanted, I stopped pleating- that would be the part that went under the apron.

I cut a long piece for the waistband, the length of the kilt plus a couple inches. Then I (should have) sewed the velcro stips on the inside and outside ends and sewed the ends down on themselves*. I laid out the strip across the kilt, and pinned it to the inside of the kilt with the raw edge parallel with the top of the pleats. So now the strip that will be my waistband is basically flipped inside the kilt. I made a seam about a half inch from the top.

I then pulled that up, so now the waistband is flipped up, and the inside raw edge is hidden by the seam. That way the fabric won't ravel or shed against a shirt. I carefully ironed the other long side of the strip down about a half inch, and ironed the strip slightly more than in half lengthwise, so that the fold I had just ironed down sat on top of the kilt's pleats on the outside and under the fold/seam inside.

I made belt loops out of tubes of fabric, and pinned them around the top of the kilt, so about a half inch of tube came down from the top of the band, and sewed them down with an X in a box method my machine has programmed into it- you could probably get away with just sewing a line across near the top of the band, but I like to make sure things stay put. Then I folded down the tube, folded the other end inside, and pinned it to the bottom of the band, to be sewn down in the next step.

Anyway, I then topstitched over the band's bottom fold, all the way around, with a seam slightly below the inside seam. That way I wasn't trying to sew through seven layers of fabric at once, only five. Except for the belt loops. Gah. It takes a helluvalotta pins, luckily I have a nice magnetic pin catcher on my machine.

Also- when making a waistband, take that into consideration when figuring the length of the kilt. I had to trim a little off the top of the pleats to get the right length with a 2 1/2 inch waistband. I'd recommend cutting after you've done all the pleating, not before, it never hurts to have a little insurance fabric out there.


*Alan's right, it is a pain in the toosh to sew them on after

[cormacmacguardhe]

Just got Barbara's book from the library, my question is, since she deals with tartan fabric, does it matter in making a kilt if you are not using tartan. I know that is unclear. What I mean is are there any things that should be done differently if you do not use a tartan. I am thinking about a solid color fabric, either a denim or cotton duck.

[bubba]

In some respects it will be easier. Since you don't need to be concerned with the size of the sett and matching patterns you can use simple measurements to determine pleat depth and reveal.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Just got Barbara's book from the library, my question is, since she deals with tartan fabric, does it matter in making a kilt if you are not using tartan. I know that is unclear. What I mean is are there any things that should be done differently if you do not use a tartan. I am thinking about a solid color fabric, either a denim or cotton duck.

Welcome to XMarks!

Barb's book actually has an appendix on making a solid color kilt. The part that would actually be easier with a tartan, is that you would have landmarks to follow as you do the pleating. I think that the pleating in terms of matching the sett of the stripe would be a little challenging, but the ability to visualy confirm the layout of the pleats would be nice.

That being said, I am still having fun putting it together. Gives me something to do while I wait for my AK, which was shipped today!

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

This is how I decided on length. It just goes to show how UN-sopnhisticated I am.

I have two Stillwater kilts and I like 'em. They're 24' in length.
I have a USA Kilt philabeg. It's 24 inches in length. I like it.
I have a Bear Kilt formal Cut. It's 24 inches in length. I'm wearing it as I write this.

I think I'll make my kilts 24 inches in length.

OK, so how did I do this?

I washed my canvas and laid it out on the floor. Rocky's philabeg was in the other room. I looked at how Rocky did his waistband. Basically, he cuts the length you want out of one edge of the material, plus about 4 inches. He overlocks the raw edge (the edge he just cut, or ripped) , leaving the selvedge at the bottom of the kilt. Then He irons down the top of the kilt, folding over that extra four inches.

Well, that's pretty simple. Even *I* can figure this out, so that's what I did.

One suggestion, though. If you're going to do it this way and you're going to use velcro for the closure, sew the velcro on the inside of the over-apron BEFORE starting the kilt. You'll save yourself a mess of hand-stitching that way. Well, if you want to hide the velcro stitching and not have it show on the front of the over-apron, anyway.

Then again, you'll have to iron "around" the velcro to smooth things out, so maybe that's not such a good idea. I dunno.

Alan, how did you do the pleating? I know that you just "guesstimated" on the number of pleats you wanted and then worked with what you had, but did you make a template of some kind, or just fold over each pleat, measure to insure the correct reveal, and stitch it down?