Four yard box pleat help.

[Barb T]

Most of Matt's box pleated kilts have 7-9 pleats. I'm making one right now that has 9. The reveal of the pleat is ideally 1/3 of the amount of fabric in the pleat (at the hip). That way, 1/3 shows, 1/3 is folded under on one side, and 1/3 on the other side. If you do it that way, the pleats meet on the wrong side of the kilt without any gap or any overlap.

So......if your hip were 42", and you did the simple thing and split it half and half pleats and apron, you'd need 21" across the back. If you had 7 pleats, each would be 3" across, and each one would require 9" of fabric (3x3). 9x7=63", or 1 3/4 yards for the pleats. The apron and underapron each take up about a yard, because of the facings and the pleat under the apron and underapron edges. So, that's perilously close to 4 yards.

Cheers,

Barb

[MacWage]

Personally, I like my pleats between 3 and 3.5 inches visible per box. The first I made was 2 inches from a 6 inch repeat. I ended up with 11 pleats (making 22 sides to steam, which was a PAIN IN THE $$$$). My current personal projects will have 6 (Carolina), 7 (MacNeil), and 8 (X Marks) pleats per kilt. When I do the other half of the Caledonia (F & K, I think-> 6 inch repeat), I WILL either make it 1.5 repeats or doubled for 3 or 4 inch boxes.

With a solid (2-4 projects down the road for me and some black and some tweed for 2 kilts) I'd play with the numbers to get 7 pleats accross the back, using ONLY the outside/visible portion of the pleat. Then, triple that number for total measurement per pleat.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

What Barb says is right on, and sounds like how I would personally pleat that kilt if it were mine. 3" wide pleats are a nice size for a box pleat and the math works out well. Of course, this is going to vary based on your own measurements.

I'd try working the math with pleat widths anywhere from 2.5" to 3.75" and just see what works out easiest given your hip measurement.