Next X kilt project

[Shanntarra]

After all the complements my rogue got on his kilt the past few weekends, and the fact that he realized how cool they are in the summer. He wants another one, this time in black.
I can't make him another one until my current theater project opens July 10th. In the mean time, while I'm dragging him to fabric stores to get fabric for that show's costumes. He is looking at stuff to make a couple new X-kilts.

While he is looking at the stuff he asked me a couple questions.

1) Could you just buy 2-2.5 yards of fabric and just piece them together so that the seam hit where it wouldnt' be seen?
2) If you did buy the whole 4-5 yards and only needed a 5yd length x 24 inch wide piece. Would someone be willing to trade the other half for a different color? That way you both get 2 kilts for the price of 1. ( My concern is making sure you had enough for waist band and or cargo pockets.

Thoughts?

[vorpallemur]

1) Could you just buy 2-2.5 yards of fabric and just piece them together so that the seam hit where it wouldnt' be seen?

You could, sure. Quite a number of commercial MUGs are done this way (I suspect, but don't know, that they're actually sewn in the half, and then the two sides joined towards the end of assembly. Easier to work with half a kilt than the whole, and promotes better specialization). On the other hand, it's harder to do. And it requires some fiddling to get right. Since it's not likely that the fabric you're going to use costs more than $10/yard, you're only saving 20 or 30 bucks (and since you can make another (or something else) out of what's left, it's not that big a deal. ) I'd only do this if I could only get a short piece of the fabric I wanted, or were working with something like corduroy, where it's required. (And I'm not doing that again, any time soon!) Or an expensive tartan fabric, of course.

Thoughts?

The other thing you might do is teach your rogue ow to make his own. It's not hard, as you know.

[Tartan Hiker]

Almost all wool tartan is woven, and sold, double width, so if you order enough for an 8-yard kilt, for example, you get 4 yards double-width and join the two pieces in the pleated section where the join disappears. So yes, joining is the "typical" construction method.

I make poly-cotton hiking kilts out of military camo cloth. The problem is that the pattern is always printed so that if you use this method the pattern will be rotated 90 degrees from its correct direction. To correct for this I buy three yards of cloth, rip the cloth across the width and join three pieces together to make a kilt length of between 5 and 6 yards.

[Shanntarra]

We only have 1 sewing machine and since I'm a professional seamstress I use mine all the time. Trust me I've been bugging him to get a 2nd one. Maybe when we get our own house I'll be able to move my antique machine into my sewing room. That will give me another one to work on.

When it is a matter of saving 10 bucks it isn't a big deal but differene of 20-30, we may go with the halves. Thank you for the camo suggestion. If he wants to go that route I'll take that into account.

[Farlander]

After all the complements my rogue got on his kilt the past few weekends, and the fact that he realized how cool they are in the summer. He wants another one, this time in black.
I can't make him another one until my current theater project opens July 10th. In the mean time, while I'm dragging him to fabric stores to get fabric for that show's costumes. He is looking at stuff to make a couple new X-kilts.

While he is looking at the stuff he asked me a couple questions.

1) Could you just buy 2-2.5 yards of fabric and just piece them together so that the seam hit where it wouldnt' be seen?

The Farlander X-Kilt #2
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...686/index.html
was split in half because the fabric from the wife's random fabric collection was not long enough. All that I did was to put the seam where I would have sewn one of the inner pleats. When I was chalking the original pleat locations, I added ~1/8" extra to each side of the seam to make up for the fabric that would have been lost had the pleat been sewn down with no seam.

It looks great, and I dare anyone to point out where the seam is from the outside of the kilt. (I made it, and I can not tell)

2) If you did buy the whole 4-5 yards and only needed a 5yd length x 24 inch wide piece. Would someone be willing to trade the other half for a different color? That way you both get 2 kilts for the price of 1. ( My concern is making sure you had enough for waist band and or cargo pockets.

Thoughts?

24" wide is probably not enough. A 4-5" waist band, and even a small hem would leave you with a kilt that was under 20" long (a little more leg than most of us are comfortable with)! If you started with some 60" wide fabric, that would split down to 30". That would make two kilts very nicely!