The expense of kilts!

[frank_a]

Thank you Usonian, great advice. As you can see, I joined here just a week ago yesterday after having purchased my 1st kilt at the Scottish Games here the previous Saturday. Our sewing room is a bit away, as it is occupied right now, but should be available in 2013. Unfortunately, I doubt it will have a 12' table as the X-Kilts manual calls for. I do hope to soon replace rugs in the house with laminate flooring though, and I can see that would be handy for lengths of material. Besides that, I am a working stiff, so time is limited for no other reason than I have other hobbies (like welding). All in due time.

On a positive note, my first pair of kilt hose (and hose garters) should arrive in today's mail. We're off to a friend's place in MD this weekend for a party, and at least now I have hose to go with my kilt!

Frank

[Alan H]

Frank, after making a couple of contemporary kilts out of canvas (not the best choice of material, but I didn't know that, at the time) I bought Barb's book "The Art of Kiltmaking" and got some inexpensive wool off of ebay. It wasn't my clans' tartan (turns out that it's a modern MacNicol) and it wasn't even kilting wool. It was "saxony" which is a rather less tight weave. I read the book...I got to work. I took a few shortcuts, yes I did.... but not a lot. 47 hours later I had a kilt which I STILL have, six years, later. I've had to do some simple repairs, and I changed a few things along the way. Someday I will get into the lining and replace the load-bearing structure that I put in under the pleats, and then do the lining right. It will then be pretty darned nice, even though it's not "kilting wool".

The next traditional kilt that I made...the gray stewart.... I made from two kilt skirts that I bought from an e-bay vendor. It's a long story..... Anyway, that one is essentially entirely hand-sewn. I had to turn over the bottom two inches because the selvedge wasn't quite right..that was a lot of work. I also didn't cut out the inside of the pleats in the fell, for various reasons which make sense to me but would probably horrify a staunch traditionalist. But about 30 hours later, I had another "traditional" kilt. The materials cost me about $30 because that's what the two skirts cost and all the sewing materials came out of my MIL's sewing chest....again, another long story. I wouldn't recommend doing this, actually. The kilt is about 10 ounce stuff, though having a large turned-up hem at the bottom adds a bit of weight. It's great around here in the summer, but really really 13 ounce would be better.

I've since then figured out my own method for sewing up traditional appearing tartan kilts. Some of the details are borrowed from Matt Newsome. Most of it is straight from Barbs book. Some of it is my own conclusions over what works, having tried it out in several kilts.

If I can do it, YOU can do it. I would recommend something like this.

1.) Make an X-kilt. LEARN from this. You'll almost certainly create something that you can wear, but treat this as a learning experience.
2.) Make another X-kilt. This one will be better than the first one.
3.) Get some inexpensive, but heavier weight wool or wool blend off of ebay. Don't get light stuff, 13 ounce would be good, you'll need 5 yards of 28-inch width, or 2.5 yards of 58-inch width, which you'll more-or-less cut in half and stitch together to make one long piece. Be patient and search for a few weeks. Adapt the X-kilt instructions...like for example, don't sew down the edges of the pleats, and make yourself a tartan box-pleat kilt....totally traditional, btw. Get nice buckles, like maybe 1.5 inch ones from the Tandy Leather website and make it beefy. I did this with 5 yards of California State tartan and I wear this kilt more than any other in my closet.
4.) Buy Barbs book. Read it. Get some inexpensive tartan off of ebay, or heck...get some pretty good stuff if it's cheap. Make a kilt by following Barb's instructions.

You now have four kilts to wear, and you know exactly what is going on...what works, what doesn't. You will have learned a MINT of information. You will be a kiltmaker, at least an "apprentice kiltmaker". Now...GO for it.

5.) Order the real stuff...the clan tartan, in a real kilting weight. Get nice buckles, make nice leather straps. Spend the money, you now have the skills to do it right. Take your time. Make your dream Tank.

I figure, if you get on it and sew a couple times a week, the above process can be completed in <6 months, maybe even <4 months. AND, when you are done, you will have 5 kilts to wear.

[Alan H]

Thank you Usonian, great advice. As you can see, I joined here just a week ago yesterday after having purchased my 1st kilt at the Scottish Games here the previous Saturday. Our sewing room is a bit away, as it is occupied right now, but should be available in 2013. Unfortunately, I doubt it will have a 12' table as the X-Kilts manual calls for. I do hope to soon replace rugs in the house with laminate flooring though, and I can see that would be handy for lengths of material. Besides that, I am a working stiff, so time is limited for no other reason than I have other hobbies (like welding). All in due time.

On a positive note, my first pair of kilt hose (and hose garters) should arrive in today's mail. We're off to a friend's place in MD this weekend for a party, and at least now I have hose to go with my kilt!

Frank

I absolutely GUARANTEE that the X-Kilt manual does NOT "require" anybody to have a twelve foot long table. I have sewn up about a dozen X-Kilts and variants on my kitchen table, which is about five feet long.

I lay them out on the floor, however. That's where I do the measuring and draw in the chalk marks.

If you're busy, then no worries. But to let the fact that you don't have a twelve-foot-long table available stop you from making a kilt....that's just plain kookaburra.

[frank_a]

Lol, well look Alan, I tried. I just had my first good laugh of the workday, so thanks. I knew that was a lame excuse.

Actually, my first laughs of the day generally revolve around our 8 month old 9# schnoodle puppy. He has been kind of a problem with me getting things done because he and I have such a good time playing. I haven't laughed so much in years. My wife getting a puppy (which I was firmly opposed to) has been great laugh therapy for me.

He would be more the problem anyways Alan. I can just see laying stuff out on the floor with Buckley around. If he was sleeping, he would wake up just to get on it or start tugging on it or both. What a character!

I started reading the X-Kilt manual and will take it while we travel this weekend and keep studying. It is very well written and engaging to read. Thanks!

Enjoy your day sir!

Frank

[de Stokesay]

Unfortunately I can't remember the source, but I recall reading several years ago about the highlander infantry regiments in World War One. The army procurators were complaining that the cost of kilts was so high....until it was pointed out to them that while one kilt cost as much as three pairs of trousers, the kilts lasted nine times as long on average as trousers. The whining stopped at that point.

So, while a kilt seems like a lot of money, and a good tank is a lot of money, amortised over the life of the kilt, even if worn very regularly, they are costly but not at all expensive.

My first kilt, which I inherited at the ripe old age of 15 and which I wore for many years is a pre-1929 British Army Black Watch Regiment kilt. Unfortunately I didn't wear it at all for a few years and sadly it shrank in my closet.

All is not lost however as John at Keltoi made me a marvelous military box pleated Ferguson kilt in H.O.E. heavy weight wool. Once you get used to those military box pleats, nothing else will do.

de Stokesay

[PEEDYC]

I too was brought up as a kilt wearer through most of my school years until i became an "expensive" item of clothing as I was growing and it had to be replaced. I went without through my late teens right up until I was in my 50s. What changed ? DIVORCE ! I suddenly found I had spare money at the end of the month so I started buying and now have the full wardrobe for casual, day wear, semi formal and formal. I am not suggesting that this is the way to afford a kilt outfit but it worked for me and I have long holidays in Gambia too to get away from the UK winter and I travel kilted there.

As far as the Scot being tarred as "stingy" I tried to live up to that but then I came to live in Yorkshire where they really know the meaning of the word.