Pleat to stripe or sett

[lethearen]

Don't know that I (or anyone here) would agree that one kilt maker is the same as the next I'm not familiar with The Kilt Company, but maybe others on the board could give you feedback on it?

As for the kilt, I agree that to the stripe would look great. I would say to the yellow stripe, for much the same reason piperdbh suggested the white -- being the colours revealed in the swish. By hiding the brighter green in the pleats, I imagine you'd get more flash than the darker bars, especially given shadows.

On second thought, by that logic, pleating to the white stripe would actually give even more contrast! Guess it's a good thing I'm not making the decision, lest it never be made ;)

[OC Richard]

There was a thread about pleating to the line on another forum a while back, and a kiltmaker chimed in and said that certain tartans aren't all that suited to it, because they don't have a line that's flanked by wide enough bands.

Her point was that if the pleats had enough taper, and the bands of colour which flanked the line weren't wide enough, additional edges or lines would appear partway along the pleats, an effect she said kiltmakers want to avoid. Now, she's talking traditional 8-yard kilts with rather narrow pleats, perhaps only 1/2" wide each or so.

So for this particular tartan she would, I suppose, want to pleat to the white line as it's flanked by wide green bands and the pleats could taper without anything other than that green showing. If you pleated to the yellow line, and if the pleats were wide enough and tapered enough, red lines would appear partway along the pleats.

To me, pleating to the line is nearly always preferable for the simple reason that all kilts were originally pleated that way, or pleated randomly. Pleating to attempt to simulate the unpleated portion is a relatively recent thing.

And, when a kilt is pleated to the line you get two looks for the price of one because the front and back of the kilt look so different.

There are some few kilts I've seen that the wrong portion of the sett was chosen for repetition so that the back of the kilt looks much less attractive than the tartan itself.

I guess some tartans' beauty depends on all the colours being seen together and no matter what portion is chosen for repetition in the pleats, the beauty is diminished.

[Jock Scot]

Something worth remembering is that in Scotland(maybe the rest of the world too?) most kilt makers will pleat to the sett as a matter of course, so, if you want your new kilt pleated differently, MAKE SURE YOU INSTRUCT THEM APPROPRIATELY!

[Deirachel]

Does anyone know of a site that allows one to see what the various tartans would like like pleated to the stripe?

[RockyR]

None that I'm aware of, but try this simple trick...

Take a decent quality image of the tartan you'd like. Make sure the tartan's lines are as close to verticle as possible.

Copy paste the picture into MS Paint or any kind of photoshop type program.

Use the 'dotted line expandable box thingie' to highlight a certain stripe, VERTICALLY.

Copy.
Paste.
Drag the image next to the previous stripe.
Repeat 5 or 10 times.

This will give you an idea what it will look like to a particular stripe.