how to pleat this tartan?

**DWFII** · 13th June 08, 02:27 PM

I tend to agree that the double red is really good looking but it's not really to a double red, it's to a double white and I'm not sure if it can even be done so it will come out looking like it does above. That's why I posted in this topic--hoping to get some feedback from kiltmakers. Thats also why I asked about military box pleats...thinking that the box pleat could be made just wide enough to have a red line on each edge.

See...I don't know...I don't know what's possible and what's not.

**Alan H** · 13th June 08, 06:22 PM

You could certainly pleat this the way you have laid it out. You have to do some reverse thinking, though.

If you knife- pleat to stripe...any stripe or any repeating part of the tartan, you will get one pleat per sett repeat. That's pretty intuitive.

Now, what you need to do is decide how wide the pleat reveal will have to be to give you the stripes you want. Let's pretend, just to make this easy....that it's going to take you exactly a one-inch reveal to show just the stripe alignment that you want. How are you going to figure this out? Answer: by taking the cloth, laying it out on the table and actually practice-pleating it. I found that a thick piece of glass was handy for this. I pleated about ten pleats and then laid the glass on top of it. This squished down the fabric reasonably flat and was clear, of course, so i could see the resulting pattern.

Twiddle and adjust and look again....and again....and again. It took me a month of twiddling to decide how I was going to pleat my X-Marks tartan.

OK, so let's say you've pleated and twiddled and decided that you needed a pleat reveal of exactly one inch to show the stripes that you want. So that would mean that 23 pleats would cover a distance of 23 inches, right?

What's your half-butt measurement? Eh???? OK so take a tape measure and measure the circumference of your body around the biggest part of your rump. Barb's book politely refers to this as your "hip" measurement. Now divide that number in half. for example, my rump measurement is 48 inches. Half of that is 24 inches. Therefore it will take 24 pleats, with one-inch reveals to cover me rumpus in pleats. In fact, actually you will likely make 25 pleats, but read Barbs book to understand why.

24 pleats, eh? OK, so that means I'll need 24 setts to make 24 pleats, won't I? Now the question becomes, "do I have enough cloth?"...or perhaps..."how much cloth do I need?"

Mind you, this is an APPROXIMATION, it will changed depending on the sett size. I will do this for my own measurements...waist 42, butt 48 assuming a 6 inch sett

Over-apron fringe: 6 inches (one sett)
Over-apron: half my hip measurement, or 24 inches (4 setts)
the under-apron pleat: 9 - 12 inches (one and a half setts to 2 setts)
pleats, with a 1-inch reveal: 24 setts x 6 inches per sett = 144 inches
the reverse pleat: 12 inches or two setts
under-apron: half my hip measurement, or 24 inches again

TOTAL: 222 inches. That's 6.17 yards......BTW I ordered 3 METERS of X-Marks tartan from the first weaving, and my X-Marks kilt has 25 pleats in it. Basically I just described my X-Marks kilt, right there.

So for this kilt, 'round MY bum, with pleats with a 1-inch reveal, I will be making a "6 yard kilt".

Did you follow all that?

What if I'd decided I HAD to have a 3/4 inch reveal?

Then my 24-inch half-rump measurement would be covered by 32 pleats, which means 32 setts.
32 pleats x 6 inches/sett = 192 inches.

all the rest of the measurements I went through above would be the same. Therefore this bit of fabric that I'd need to make this kilt would be 48 inches longer than the previous example. That's 270 inches, or 7.5 yards....close enough to the magical "eight yard kilt".

I hope that was helpful.

Regarding your question about whether this could be made into a military box pleat, centered around the double stripe...Answer: yes. However, if you want to have a military box pleat made with a really wide "folded over pleat" it won't look all that great IN MY OPINION.. Everything depends on the size of the sett and the size of the reveal you want to show the stripes that appeal to you.

**DWFII** · 14th June 08, 03:30 PM

Alan,

Thank you for taking the time and energy to explain all that. I confess that I feel dull in the face of it, however. Not being a kiltmaker, not even having begun to visualize myself making a kilt, I am afraid much of it went over my head.

Forgive me if I ask...what's the bottom line? Do you think the tartan can be pleated to the double white (as above) in a 16 ounce 8 yard kilt? Could it be done as a knife pleat and look good? Could it be done as a military box pleat and look good? Which would be better/easier?

PS I am not going to attempt this, myself. I just want to know with some certainty when I instruct the maker that it is do-able and that I am not asking for the moon.

**Mark Keeney** · 15th June 08, 09:46 AM

I personally wouldn't pleat this one to the stripe. To my taste I need a very prominent stripe to pleat to or it looks too much like a horizontal striped kilt. The double white stripe is the only one that is strong enough to keep it vertical, but it st too busy as you have shown.

This should in no way discourage you in pleating to the stripe.

**DWFII** · 16th June 08, 06:33 AM

Thanks to all...it's a complicated topic--I feared it would be. Thank you for sharing your expertise.

"We're all born ignorant...and innocent. But stupidity and the unwillingness to learn is the original sin."

**Alan H** · 16th June 08, 12:25 PM

It's really not a complicated topic. It really boils down to this.

1. get out a ruler
2. measure the distance between vertical red stripe to vertical red stripe.
3. write down the distance
4. add 2x the thickness of the stripes themselves to this distance. I mean the width of the red stripes themselves, and nothing else. This is so a little bit of green appears alongside the "outside" of each red stripe.
5. write down that number

If the number is significantly bigger than one inch, then you can DO it, but it won't look much like a traditional kilt. The pleats will be too wide, and you won't have lots of them and it won't look like the magical (and mythical) "eight yard kilt" because you won't have enough pleats, and they will be too wide.

you can make a perfectly good kilt with wider pleats, but it won't look like the "eight yard kilt" that you are most likely thinking of.

If the number you get at the end of step #5 is 1/2 to 7/8 of an inch then you CAN get your magical and mythical "8 yard kilt", knife pleated, from this material.

If the number you get is significantly less than 1/2 an inch, then I recommend that you measure the whole sett, because the sett size will be less than 3 inches and that's not going to make a very traditional-looking kilt.

PLEASE please understand that the "eight yard kilt" is a mystical and magical legendary phrase which means a kilt made of anything from 7 to 9 yards of fabric. If a really husky guy gets a kilt made with 30+ pleats and the sett size is 9 inches, that kilt is going to have a LOT more than 8 yards of fabric in it. Conversely, if a really slender guy gets a fantastic kilt made with 26 pleats and the sett is 5 inches, that wonderful kilt he has may have more like 6 - 6.5 yards of material in it.

They both may be fantastic kilts, but they DON'T have eight yards of material in them.

**Alan H** · 16th June 08, 12:28 PM

If, after this thread, you are totally confused and haven't got a clue, then just buy 4 yards of double-width material and take it to your kiltmaker and just ask. If you are a seriously hefty guy, like with a waist measurement over 48-50 inches, then buy 5 yards. You might spend more money than you need to, but then the leftovers might make you a fly plaid or make your lady a nice scarf or sash.