kilt yardage ?

[freddie]

When I bought my first real Scottish kilt about ten years ago I gave my measurement as a 48inch waist and yardage wasn't an issue. I received a fantastic kilt, pleated to the set, and was very pleased with it. However I've lost a wee bit of weight since then, I'm now a 46inch waist/50inch seat, but for the past couple of years all the kiltmakers I've dealt with have insisted that I must have a 9 yard kilt (at extra cost). In his book 'So you're going to wear the kilt' J. Charles Thompson says that he has measured so called 8 yard kilts and has found them to contain less that 6 yards of cloth, and he advises customers not to make an issue of yardage. I just wonder how important this extra yard is and why I (or anyone else over a 45inch waist/seat) really needs it ?

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Yardage is an issue only if you want to make it an issue. The largest kilt I have personally made was for a 67" waist. I used a grand total of 6 yards.

Now, mind I was making a box pleated kilt and I wanted fairly wide pleats. They were something like 2.5" or 3" wide, if I recall. Six yards what what was required for that. Normally, on a box pleated kilt for a gentleman with a hip of under 46" I would only use 4 yards. If the hips are over 46" I'll order 5 yards of cloth to make the kilt (or 6, as in the case above). I don't always need all 5 yards, but I want to make sure I have them there if I need them.

For a standard "8 yard" knife pleated kilt, you don't want big wide pleats like the box pleat. That's just not the style. So, could you, at a 50" seat, have a kilt made from 8 yards of cloth? Sure, but there would be fewer pleats, and wider pleats, than you might otherwise expect. It would affect the look of your kilt. Most people, wanting that style of kilt, have in mind pleats of a certain narrowness. To maintain that look, you very well might need to add another yard of cloth.

But a lot of this depends on the tartan, as well. Depending on the size of the sett, you might need only 6 yards for an "8 yard kilt." Other tartans might take 9 yards for an "8 yard kilt."

I encountered this recently with a kilt that Lochcarron made for a customer of mine. His tartan was the red Gordon. His hips were something like 42", fairly standard. Lochcarron phoned to say they only had 7 yards of the cloth on hand (he wanted an 8 yard kilt). I didn't think one yard short would be such a big deal, until they told me that normally his kilt would be 9 yards in that tartan. Even though his hips were not large, because the tartan pattern was so large, the pleats were extra deep and they needed 9 yards.

Ultimately, in that case, the customer chose to have the 7 yard kilt made, but the pleats were noticably wider than they would have been otherwise. He chose not to make an issue of the yardage, and got a kilt that he liked. But then again he wanted the kilt for casual wear. Had he been purchasing it for use in a pipe band, or to dance in, or just wanted to look of the very narrow pleats, he would have needed 9 yards.

I hope this clarifies things a bit for you!

[Pleater]

Have you actually taken a tape measure and measured the length of the hem of one of your 9 yard kilts?

I jumped in at the deep end and started out with a 6 yard and a 8 yard as my first two kilts. The 6 yarder has 6 inch pleats and the 8 has 7 inch.

They are 50 inch hip.

However - if the set dictated an 8 inch pleat, and the cloth was cut so the set did not make joining easy, and the centering of the set on the apron meant cutting off almost a whole set, then to make the equivalent of the 8 yarder - with 26 small pleats, could easily require 9 yards of cloth.

I had the luxury of long lengths of cloth to pick from my stash, but when buying almost exactly the length of cloth required and then having to fit the set onto the kilt in exactly the right place, finding that you are short of a foot of cloth must be every maker's nightmare.

[freddie]

Great answers. It's what I expected to hear and that really clears up this issue for me. This is a great website and I'm really glad I came across it.