Top band alignment question

[Kitfoxdave]

I am in the process of resizing an ex-hire kilt for my son as he lost quite a bit of weight.

While doing this, I removed the lining, and the interfacing in it. I have installed a linen stabilizer strap (full length of the kilt) and the canvas is also full length of the kilt.
When aligning the top band, is it aligned with the tartan in the front apron, and the back falls where it may for alignment? Or should I cut the top band and align it on both the front and the back and splice it? It was not aligned at all when he purchased the kilt.

Thanks for your help!

[Pleater]

I suspect that even if you tried, the pleats will not align - assuming it is pleated to the sett as you have the question in the first place, the fell is most likely correct for the sett at hip level on the pleats but narrows into the waist, so attempting to line it up would actually show that disparity very clearly.

Hopefully you can get an exact match across the front apron and then allow the sett to fall as it may around the rest of the kilt is probably going to be the simplest solution.

Anne the Pleater

[Barb T]

I am in the process of resizing an ex-hire kilt for my son as he lost quite a bit of weight.

Should I cut the top band and align it on both the front and the back and splice it? It was not aligned at all when he purchased the kilt.

No one will ever see the underapron, and piecing the top band just adds a bulky spot. Align the top band with the apron, and let the rest fall where it may! Every once in awhile, I make a kilt where, by total happenstance, the tartan lines up in both the apron and the underapron. I'm just finishing one where that happened, but it is very very rare.

Barb

[OC Richard]

When aligning the top band, is it aligned with the tartan in the front apron, and the back falls where it may for alignment?

All the kilts I've ever owned were like that, the tartan is lined up across the top of the front apron but simply falls where it may across the pleated portion, whether the kilt is pleated to the sett or pleated to the stripe.

It's an advantage of plain binding like military kilts have.

[Kitfoxdave]

All the kilts I've ever owned were like that, the tartan is lined up across the top of the front apron but simply falls where it may across the pleated portion, whether the kilt is pleated to the sett or pleated to the stripe.

It's an advantage of plain binding like military kilts have.

What material type is the binding used on military kilts? That may be of interest in future kilt resizing exercises! Or God forbid, I make one from scratch.

Thanks dor the help everyone!

[Barb T]

I am well aware that the bright green top binding is a tradition in many military kilts. For a non-military kilt, I vastly prefer a top band that is the same as the tartan. Even if it doesn't exactly match the stripes even in the apron, it is not glaringly different in color. And, for most people, it's a pretty esoteric thing to have a bright green top band on a kilt. Very few people would understand and would simply see it as a very, very odd choice. So, if I were altering a kilt, I wouldn't go there.....Just my two cents......

[OC Richard]

That green binding was pretty much universal on Scottish military kilts from Victorian times up until the Royal Regiment of Scotland was created in 2006.

The binding is grass-green herringbone wool tape. (Wider herringbone wool tape, in scarlet, was traditionally used for military flashes.)

Elsie Stuehmeyer, who made a large number of army kilts while at Thomas Gordon, said that that green tape was a real pain to attach due to it being narrow.

When I ordered a military-spec kilt from House of Edgar (who still weaves the super-heavyweight fuzzy huge-sett old-school military tartan) they used grass-green wool cloth for the binding. They said they couldn't get the green narrow herringbone tape any more.

The 2006 Royal Regiment of Scotland kilts departed from the way military kilts had long been made not only in dropping the green herringbone binding (changing it to black) but also switching from the traditional military two-prong stamped sheet-metal black buckles to the ordinary cast-metal civilian-style buckles (though done up in black).