Aninteresting experiment

[Alan H]

As I've been exercising a lot and because of years of squats, deadlifts and throwing large objects my rumpus and gut have become even more "manly".

meaning...large.

Which means that my old Muted MacNaughton PV kilt is about 4 inches too small now. It was always tight, now it's completely unwearable. What to do, what to do?

Well, I just ordered a meter of double-wide fabric from Scotweb and this is what I'm going to do.

A.) rip out the waistband from the over apron, and the under-apron as well.
B.) Cut off the over-apron. That's right... I'm going to give myself about 18 inches to work with and then I'm going to cut off the rest of the over apron. Ditto for the under apron.
C.) I'm going to rip out the stitching for the reverse pleat on the right side.
D.) I'm going to use the fabric I've got to add 2 more pleats to each side of the kilt. That should add roughly 2 1/2 inches to the kilts seat dimension.
E.) Then I'm going to be clever and use the new fabric I've just bought to make a new over-apron and fringe, and under-apron which will be about 2 inches wider than the one I've got, now.
F.) I'll make new waistband sections from the middle swath of fabric that will be left over, and stitch
G.) New straps, new leather on the over-apron...same old metal buckles. I'll leave the strap/buckle on the outside of the left side of the kilt, in place.

Voila... Kilt which is about 4 inches bigger in circumference than the original, and all the stitching that joins it together will be hidden inside the folds of the under-apron pleat, or inside the reverse pleat.

Should be an interesting project, but it's a lot less $$ than making a new kilt. BTW, this kilt is pleated to sett. If it was pleated to stripe, it'd be a lot simpler.

[New World Czech]

This sounds like it will work. Take lots of progress pix. Can't wait to see the final outcome.

[MNlad]

Ambitious. Hope the dye lot and sett dimensions match.
Pix. Must have pix.

[Alan H]

Ambitious. Hope the dye lot and sett dimensions match.
Pix. Must have pix.

I'm not concerned about the sett size, I'm pretty sure that will be the same. Dye lots could be an issue, but more of an issue is that this kilt is 5+ years old and has been washed several times.

However, I have a small...24 x 24 inch piece of the same fabric from another totally different production run of this tartan and when I hold it up against my kilt, it looks fine. So I think I'm probably OK. Of course, I won't know until the stuff gets here, eh?

[Alan H]

This morning I got to work with the seam ripper, and since I was tidy and careful, I managed to unsew everything that I needed to, without ripping a hole in the fabric. I had assumed that I would probably mess up something, but since I didn't, I may have enough new tartan left over for an A line skirt for Mrs. Alan when this is all done. Not that she'll wear it, but what the heck.

This is singularly unremarkable stuff, so no pictures of this stage.

[Alan H]

Since I was home today with Day Two of my head cold, I decided to forge ahead on this project. I remembered that I had almost a yard of MacNaughton, weathered PV in my sewing box, so I didn't have to wait for the shipment from ScotWeb.

The two pleats per side came out well, though the last pleat that the original manufacturer put in on the right side didn't follow the sett pattern, it was off by one tartan unit. To tear it out, or not? Hmmmm... I left it in, and just put in my two more pleats, proceeding with what seemed to look good to me, but technically, the pleating is off in the last three pleats. Nobody will notice, I'm sure.

I then took the "extra from the over-apron" and spliced it to the now half-sized under-apron. I had to turn the material over because of the fading issue that I posted up in the General Kilt Talk forum. So there's now a seam smack down the middle of the underapron. However, I took significant care to line the pattern up, so while it would be nice to not have the seam, things could be worse. Also, it's on the UNDER-apron, so it's not visible unless the kilt ove rapron flies up.....which of course it will, in the middle of some energetic throw, but I think it's fine. I wouldn't want to wear this to the snooty Tartan Ball, but it's more than fine for out on the field.

I then recycled some of the waistband and liner that I cut from the front of the kilt...sewed everything up and stitched on the leather strap and tried it on. BINGO...spot-on. YAY!

[Alan H]

Next, I dove into my fabric stash and hauled out the old MacNaughton, weathered PV that I had. Wow....big color difference. This stuff has lived at the bottom of my sewing stashbox for 4+ years, while the kilt has been out and there's a significant color difference. Oh, well! ...gonna try it and see.

It took a while to figure out how to get the tartan pattern to line up the best, because there was about 1/8th of an inch difference in the sett sizes, but since the join is hidden at the very bottom of the underapron pleat, my main concern was to do my best to get the main stripes to line up from the left-hand edge of the over-apron and the first pleat. Well, the worst of the mismatches will be hidden under my belt, and all the rest of them aren't bad. In fact the three main contrasting lines in the pattern line up surprisingly well between the apron and the first pleat. It really came out pretty well.

Now, the real stinker was that this is the older style selvedge. Anyone who has a 5+ year old USA Kilt knows what I'm referring to...the little "frayed edge". The rest of the kilt had a finished selvedge, which makes me wonder if this is Marton Mills PV, after all. Well, I can't have a frayed edge next to a finished selvedge, so I turned under about 1/8th of an inch of the frayed edge and hemmed it. Once it was ironed, it looked fine. Again...this isn't Tartan Ball sooper-dooper stuff, but it's going to be fine for throwing.

I'd set up my center-line in the over apron, so I folded in my right-hand edge of the over-apron and strapped it on me. BINGO....spot on, got it exactly right. I fringed two edges and top-stitched the right edge of the over-apron down.

The kilt is now sitting on the kitchen table, with heavy-duty interfacing lying in place to support the over-apron. If it was a wool kilt, I'd use hair canvas, but I don't happen to have any hair canvas, and this kilt came from the original maker with nothing but a light liner under the over-apron. So, hey....I'm improving it.

Upshot...so far, so good. The kilt will fit me again, and so far it's cost me nothing because I had all the extra materials lying around. It's not going to be formal-quality stuff, but it will work just great on the field.

Now, what to do with the yard of MacNaughton, weathered PV that I ordered from Scotweb, when it gets here? HA!

Next project will be a Black Watch box pleat for Pastor Greg. I have two yards of nice 13 ounce wool that was given to me. It's not enough for a kilt for me...and it's not enough for a knife pleat for Greg, but it will do just fine, box-pleated.

If I can ever meet up with Mrs. Farlander, I can check the sizing on her skirt and finish it, which would be NICE!!!!

[Alan H]

Aaaaannnddd...it's done. It now fits better than when I first bought it, sheesh. Now I have a clan kilt to throw in when we go to Scotland.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Alan,

I once had to add an additional yard of material to one of my kilts. When the new cloth arrived I discovered that not only was the sett size just slightly different, but also the pattern did not match at the selvage. I thought about hemming the new cloth so that the pattern would match, but because the sett size was not the same, the pattern was going to be off no matter what I did.

What I did in that case was to give myself a couple of additional pleats made from old under apron, and then use the new cloth to create a new under apron. No one sees it when it's being worn anyway, so any minor differences in the two lengths of tartan are hidden.

Bob Martin has a photograph of an early 19th century MacLean kilt in his All About Your Kilt where what was originally a 4 yard box pleated kilt in the MacLean tartan was remade as a 5+ yard box pleated kilt. The original kilt had 8 box pleats; the remade one has 11 box pleats. But the additional MacLean tartan that was added was a different (later) version of the MacLean of Duart sett. The new sett is used not just for the under apron, where it would be hidden, but for about four of the pleats, as well, where the difference is clearly visible.

What mattered to the wearer in this case was not that his kilt looked perfect, but that he had a kilt to wear at all!

[Alan H]

Matt, I thought about doing something much like what you describe. The stinker was that the under-apron was already significantly too small, so I would have had to undo about 3 pleats to get enough material to re-make a large-enough over-apron. What stopped me was the fading issue. The under-apron is protected from the sun, and there was almost no color change, but the pleats on the right side were significantly faded. Well...that's not going to work for an over-apron.

There's significant sett mismatch noticeable to someone who's looking for it, between the left side of the over-apron and the first knife pleat. Ditto for the right side of the over-apron and the reverse pleat and last pleat on the right side. It bugs me, but oh well!!! It wouldn't really be "right" if this were a nice wool kilt that would be worn in more formal situations, but I put myself more in the situation similar to the unknown person who rebuilt that MacLean kilt. I couldn't wear my MacNaughton kilt, because it was just way too small....but now I can. WIN! Nobody is going to care on the athletics field, and it didn't cost me a dime because I had all the material on-hand.

I find all this kind of amusing because I am literally (hopefully) the biggest I will ever be, right now. I weigh about 300 pounds and a lot of that is muscle that I've added to my rumpus from so much squatting and deadlifting in the gym. Honest! ...though of course there's some "other" tissue added to my midsection as well! After this trip to Scotland, I plan to drop down to more like about 250-260 and I'll need to either re-make this kilt again, or more likely, just get more fabric and make a new one. The goal here was to have a clan kilt to throw in this season and particularly in Scotland, and while it's nowhere near to perfect, it's quite adequate.