Going to sew my own kilt, any suggestions before I start?

[MarkReaves]

Cool, I do thank everyone for their advice and comments so far.

All advice and guidance would be greatly appreciated as learning as much as possible (preferably from others who have been down the same road) will help greatly when I get to making my own kilt.

I'm thinking the most difficulty for me when making my kilt will be the cargo pockets and making sure I get the right amount of the right kind of fabric and making sure I don't screw up too bad.

I'm looking to spend under $50 total for fabric and thread. Where my pants hang (which is where I plan to wear the kilt) is about 52in and the length of the kilt will be 22in or 23in. I've heard 1in to 2in pleats look best, I'm still studying pleats and such (kind of confusing to someone who never sewn pleats).

I'm aiming at "simple yet functional" in design. Of course, I want it to look good also because I will be more likely to wear a good looking kilt everywhere.

The xkilt design seems pretty good but I need the pleat gif? It seems to be missing or I'm overlooking it. Does anyone have a copy?

Thanks again :-)

[fluter]

The xkilt design seems pretty good but I need the pleat gif? It seems to be missing or I'm overlooking it. Does anyone have a copy?

The diagram is Appendix A, page 29 of the PDF document. It shows a sample layout from one of the X-kilt prototypes. You can study that, read (and re-read ) the instructions, and work out about how much fabric you need.

The fabric will probably be double width: most of us just bought 4 yards (or whatever) and when it was split, we had material for 2 kilts. You could seam it together (like a traditional kilt made from double width), but that adds a bit of complexity.

There are several discussions in the Xmarks archives. Search through the DIY forum until you find them. in "search this forum" try entering "xkilt" and "x-kilt."

Poly-cotton twill is great, because the pleats should hold a press well. I couldn't find any locally, so my first 2 are all-cotton & tend to be a bit wrinkly. Later on, I may look for some denim in a cotton and polyester blend. Right now I'm working on 2 hand sewn trad kilts (one in throw-away fabric, one in real tartan).

Best wishes, and we want to see pictures!