As an eternal optimist myself, I can only step back and bow to a master - that looks like something where you could spend months trying to reweave the edges to get enough fabric to sew a seam.

I was thinking, maybe some of that really ultra light weight iron on interfacing could help to stabilise the edges of the cut outs and give you something to work with - maybe tease out the weft threads onto one piece and the warp onto another, laid flat and untangled, and then you would not be losing anything of the original but it would hold the rest against further fraying.

I did reweave the edge of a cloak once, tying on sewing cotton with rolling hitches to the ends of the threads and using cut up bamboo skewers as bobbins to move the individual threads of warp and weft back into place.

Once it was all back together again I sewed on an edging tape and then glued the ends of the threads to it before turning up the hem.

I can't help thinking that it might be an idea to offer to 'service' older kilts now, before they start to disintegrate as badly as that one.