Pleating to Horizontal ?!

[mookien]

OC Richard: Aesthetically, I'm with you on this one. I would forgo bilateral symmetry to gain LOTS of purple - a favorite color. Just call me Chester Royde. But, then again, I'm one of those guys who look down at my feet and see a tan sock and a brown sock, .... and don't care. :-)

[MacBean]

The reason that the teem "pleating to the block" doesn't appear in TAoK is that it's simply a variant of pleating the stripe.

WRT the pic in the previous post, the problem with pleating to the double brown stripe is that the two brown stripes are not quite the same width. This means that a pleat isn't bilaterally symmetrical. I think that pleating to the stripe looks best when pleats are bilaterally symmetrical.

Looking at the photo, I must be missing something Barb. I see from left to right: wide brown, narrow brown, then wide brown, which is symmetrical. True, the first wide brown is a section of a much wider brown, but the way he's got this pinned it looks symmetrical to me. Can you train my eyes?

[OC Richard]

Yes that's quite true Barbara, that the two brown lines are of slightly different widths.

Since that's only apparent if you're very close (closer than anyone would normally be to my tochis when I'm out piping) I accept the slight loss of symmetry for the larger gain of colour. If, while looking at that three-pleating-option photo, you put up your hand so that, one at a time, you can see the kilt front and only one of the three options, you'll note that the option on the right captures the colours of the tartan better than either of the other two.

The lefthand option makes the entire kilt rear brownish and dull, the centre option makes the entire kilt rear pale green. Only the righthand option allows pure undiluted purple to glow out at you... and it's the lovely colours which attracted me to Isle Of Skye in the first place.

[Grae]

To my eye often Black Watch kilts seem pleated to the horizontal "line" as the thin black stripe it is really pleated to does not stand out against the stronger horzonal effect of the pleating- and looks good. I had my Graham of Montrose (modern) pleated this way and now realise why people ask me if it is black watch, from behind there is no white stripe and the horizonatal green,blue and black do look similar. I must say that the phrase Lawn Chair look has the implication of inferior pleating style which I do not think is warranted in all cases, the pleating effects are really dependant on the tartan some look good pleated to the "horizontal line" effect and some less so I believe that if you like the look of pleating effect in your kilt you should not be swayed by so called "rules" of correct looks. That said I do value the advice of my kiltmaker and consult them on questions such as these.

[Brian K]

Barb T.: Thanks for your comments. They make sense and help me understand pleating a bit more, but I'm not about to get between Drs. Tewksbury and Fiddes in a kilt-making discussion. :-)

That's a beautiful Douglas kilt (the Clan of my family, by the way) and makes obvious what you write about "subdued color differences" and non-stripeyness. My brother has an Ancient Douglas and I'll be sure to point him to your post.

It's entirely possible that Barb and Nick are both correct, but just coming at the problem from two different angles.

The Douglas example Barb showed did look good because it minimizes the "lawn chair effect." The subtle difference between the blue and green is probably the principal reason it is pleasing rather than jarring. It seems to me that when Nick referred to not asking a novice to do this he possibly meant that an experienced kilt maker might try to steer you away from such a pleating method if she/he realized it would broaden your beam, so to speak. It also could be that if there is a more pleasing way of pleating to the horizontal or the no stripe than another he/she would make sure you were aware of it.

I have a friend who was a hair dresser before he became an English teacher. He was in great demand and could pretty much charge what he wanted because he really knew what he was doing when it came to hair. If a client asked him do do something he knew would end hideously he would refuse to do it. He would try to steer them towards something else that would give a more pleasing result. He assumed that if you were paying him as much as he charged then he owed it to you to give you the benefit of his wisdom and experience. He lost very few clients this way and most were grateful that he helped prevent them from making a mistake. If I were paying for a garment as expensive as a bespoke kilt I would expect my kilt maker to use similarly good judgment to keep me from making a visually unfortunate mistake.

I'm not trying to climb into Nick's head, but that's how reading his words struck me.

Brian

[mookien]

Brian: That possibility had not occurred to me. Thanks for pointing it out. That may very well be what "Nick" meant when he wrote those words, and for beginners elaborating on it any further would likely have been even more puzzling.

In any case I understand it now and all the good folks on this thread can take credit or that. :-)

[Alan H]

My XMTS tartan kilt is pleated this way. There is no strong vertical element centered in the pleats.



and especially here...I am the big guy on the far left.

[Alan H]

From left to right...pleating styles

Me...6-yard kilt pleated to "no stripe" , meaning that the kilt is pleated to the same area in the sett, but there is no strong vertical element in the sett at that point. 24 pleats

Panache: kilt made by Way2Fractious, military box pleat with the gold line centered; "8 yard kilt" though it's probably actually 7 yards of cloth on Jamie and probably about 28-30 pleats..

the young lad is Panache's son...knife pleat to "no stripe" like mine.

In the middle is way2Fractious, knife pleated to sett, 8 yard kilt or close enough

Next to the far right is Alan (another Alan) with kilt pleated to stripe, the gold line centered.

Far right is an X Marks the Scot tartan kilt done up by Sportkilt, 'round MacKellars rumpus, so more or less knife pleated to the dominant white stripe, but not all that many pleats.

[mookien]

Alan: What a great picture of different pleating styles (and kilt lengths for that matter)! Thanks. I'll keep that one for illustrative purposes.

I like the "dreaded lawn-chair effect". I would like it even if it went completely around the kilt, though it wouldn't be very traditional, I suppose. I also like it for the striking, visual "swishing" effect that Tobus wrote about. And for me, the knife-edges of the pleats themselves provide enough vertical contrast to maintain the plaided look.

I must confess, though, that the horizontal-dominant effect in your kilt does create the optical illusion that your butt is bigger than everyone else in the line. ;-)

[Sammac]

How about clan Scott modern red?



EDIT: I though of four obvious ways to pleat this same piece of tartan. They are on page two in this thread:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...d-plaid-63962/

Wow, that makes it really bright red!! My Scott Red Modern(my wife's fav.) is pleated to the sett, but that might make an interesting look.