Pleating challenge #3: pleating an asymmetric tartan

[Barb T]

In the past, I've posted a couple of threads on pleating challenges. I thought that adding one on asymmetric tartans would be good (especially since F&K has had a lot of Maple Leaf for sale lately!!).

So, first, what makes a tartan asymmetric? In the MacMillan kilt below that I've just finished, the yellow stripe looks like it ought to be a pivot, but you'll notice that the stripes adjacent to the yellow are not mirror images. And there isn't a single spot on the tartan where you can find a pivot with mirror image elements. So, the tartan is asymmetric. But notice that the order of stripes in the warp _is_ the same as the order of stripes in the weft. Some people are confused about that.



Choosing a center stripe isn't as easy as it is with a symmetric tartan, where you can choose one of the pivots as the center front. In this MacMillan kilt, I chose the yellow because it is so prominent that it would have looked odd if it weren't centered in the apron.

This kilt is pleated to the sett, which means that the pleats are folded to reproduce the tartan across the back of the kilt. This kilt is a nice example of one that worked out really well. If you squint and stand back, it's difficult to tell the front from the back. A kiltmaker does the best he/she can to make square blocks square across the pleats and not too wide or too narrow, but sometimes it's just impossible, and square elements wind up being somewhat rectangular.

The rule of thumb when laying out a kilt with most tartans is that the first pleat next to the apron should be a mirror image of the last pleat next to the underapron, and checking that is one way to make sure that you've laid the kilt out properly. This isn't the case with an asymmetric tartan, though! In the close-up below of the kilt back, you'll see that the asymmetry of the tartan means that the first and last pleats are different (maroon on the left and green on the right). So, you can't use the standard rule of thumb to check layout - you just have to be extra careful to avoid a mistake.



And last, where you fold each individual pleat can be tricky, and it's worth pinning a couple of tests to see which looks best. In the pic below, you'll see that the yellow stripe is divided among three pleats. Ditto for the maroon stripe. You'll also see that the yellow in the two pleats bordering the center yellow are the same width, whereas the two maroons bordering the center maroon are _not_ the same width (the right side is a little wider). Given the pleat size, I couldn't have both equal and had to choose which one would be identical and which one wouldn't. I chose the yellow, because it has a central black stripe, and I thought it would look really odd to have the yellow on one side of the black stripe be a different width than the yellow on the other side. It's not nearly as obvious in the maroon pleats, because there's no central stripe. Doing a test pleating helps catch things like this.