Having bought a bolt of cloth I have managed to devise three different kilts so far by pleating to the black, the lavender or the purple stripe, and as the repeat is 8 inches I can make a fourth one pleated to the sett. I will still have lots of cloth left - maybe I'll store it for future making.

The pleated to stripe kilts are already well under weigh, and they do look entirely different from the back. I will not complete them until the weather cools as they are quite heavy and trying to work on them in this heat would probably exhaust me. I decided to sew the edges of the pleats so as to get the stripe at the same distance from a sharp fold, once that is done I can then sew the waist to whatever size I need - probably sewing it by hand for ease of future adjustments.

I think the kilts are quite sucessful as they already look good with the pleats pinned into place.

I can't see how the literacy of a kilt maker would affect the way a kilt is made. I might be a bit biased as my father's mother was a country woman who could run a household and the orchard, poultry yard, dairy and all the rest, clothe a man from top to toe except for making his boots - but she could mend them once he had them - and she was illiterate until my father went to school and she sat with him and learned what lessons he'd done that day once he got home. She was coached so she could write her name when she married at 21 - rather than put an X in the church register, but that was all she could do.

Just because she could not read nor write her letters didn't mean she could not count - though she had no concept of money for a long time. However she picked it up quickly enough as the shilling had a dozen pennies and there were a score of shillings to the pound, both familiar to her from the counting of eggs and the 'yarn tan tethra' of the shepherds.