Wasting no time; Hall tartan box-pleat

**Alan H** · 19th June 09, 11:04 AM

I'm ticking them off my list. Next up is the Hall tartan box pleat. I test-pleated today, looks good. THi sis a serious annoyance, though. When I ordered the stuff, I didn't talk to the proprietor of the store, which according to my West Coast Clan dude, has 13 ounce tartan in stock. No, I talked to someone who obviously had no clue about anything. I specifically told him I wanted it for a BOX PLEAT KILT and I understood he had KILTING TARTAN IN STOCK in the warehouse.

Now, this company had a fire about 18 months ago and lost a lot of stock, but at the 2007 Pleasanton Games, they assured me that the Hall tartan was not damaged. So I figured I was good to do. I should have taken a clue when the guy said "we're waiting for your tartan to ship".

But I didn't.

So a few weeks later a bag arrives from the vendor. Like an idjit, I didn't open it for a couple of weeks. Turns out that they shipped ten ounce cloth. ARRRRRGH.

This stuff has been sitting in my study for months while I vaguely thought about how to work around this dilemma. I have some ideas, quite experimental, which I'm going to try out. One of them includes turning up a huge hem, probably 4+ inches to add weight to the bottom of the kilt. We shall see.

This one better not take 6 months!

**Pleater** · 21st June 09, 09:51 AM

How about offering the 10 oz fabric for sale and looking around for something heavier?

I think that box pleats look best in a heavy fabric - particularly single box pleats.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

**Tattoo Bradley** · 21st June 09, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by Pleater

How about offering the 10 oz fabric for sale and looking around for something heavier?

I think that box pleats look best in a heavy fabric - particularly single box pleats.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

I'm gonna have to agree.

I have a 10 oz. 5 yard knifepleat. It, as a kilt, is basically unwearable. I wore it for my wedding, and it looked the part. (First kilt, had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Figured "100% wool" meant it was good to go.) But that 10 oz tartan, especially stretched out in such low yardage is going to look pretty rough in no time with any real wear. Just my opinion...

**BEEDEE** · 21st June 09, 11:17 AM

I have an 11oz box pleat. Fine for hot weather but a bear in a breeze. I'd look for a heavier material.

Brian

**Alan H** · 21st June 09, 08:17 PM

I hear all of this...I completely understand and I know that this is going to be a serious compromise. But I'm not buying this stuff again. Besides, who the heck would buy 2 yards of 10 ounce Hall tartan? What would anyone make out of it? I paid seventy bucks a yard for this stuff.

**Dixiecat** · 22nd June 09, 06:16 AM

I had a kilt made for a dancer out of 10oz Christina Young tartan. I insisted on a 4" hem. The deep hem did a lot to help weigh it down and make the kilt swing.

If you could find some jacket chaining you could sew a few links on the backside of some pleats at the hem every other pleat for further weight.

**Alan H** · 22nd June 09, 10:43 AM

After mulling this over, thought...maybe I'll make a waistcoat, a tie and a driving cap out of this stuff. As of about 11 PM last night, that was what I was going to do. However, I got up this morning and looked at it while I was eating breakfast and I said to myself...

but I don't WANT a waistcoat in the Hall tartan. I'll never wear it.

So I'm making a kilt. I cut it out this morning before work and pulled up what will be about a 3 inch hem. I swore I'd never hand-blind-stitch another hem, but OK, fine.

I think what I'm going to do is line the entire pleated section with a layer of 8 ounce dark blue cotton twill, which I will pre-shrink. I will also line the over-apron with the same stuff, with a couple of folded over layers out at the edges of the aprons. I will machine-stitch the lining to the tartan underneath the parts of the box pleats that "show", so in fact the liner will be attached every two and a half inches, but the stitching will not be visible when the kilt is "at rest". They will be visible when the pleats "flash" but you can't have everything.. It will also be attached along the bottom by the hand-blind-stitching at the hem.

This is going to be a lot of work, but not a totally ridiculous amount of work. It will significantly increase the overall weight of the kilt. We shall see how it comes out....think "experiment".

I have made ten ounce kilts before. My Lindsay 6-yard is a ten ounce. The Gray Stewart is probably 11 ounce cloth. Piper George's Dutch Mackay was 10 ounce. The "Fraser and Kirkbright gray plaid on sale forever" kilt is ten ounce. Al of these kilts are just fine. It's just that all those kilts are 6+ yards. This one is not. all of those kilts over-aprons are very light, so I might be going overboard, here. However, lining the pleat area makes sense to me.

Hmm...jacket chain, Dixiecat? What's that? I think I shall find out.

**Alan H** · 22nd June 09, 10:51 AM

I just found out what a jacket chain is by skimming an aritcle about making a Chanel jacket.

WHOAH!!!

Interesting idea, though. Hm... It's an adaptable idea, too. Hmmm. Hmmmm.

**vorpallemur** · 23rd June 09, 08:53 PM

Originally Posted by Alan H

I just found out what a jacket chain is by skimming an aritcle about making a Chanel jacket.

WHOAH!!!

Interesting idea, though. Hm... It's an adaptable idea, too. Hmmm. Hmmmm.

For those following along at home, a jacket chain is really a chain for a jacket. Coco Chanel is famous for using them. Her chains were attached to the hem of the jacket. that allows the jacket to be made of a lightweight fabric, but the added weight of the chain sewn into the hem makes the jacket hang and drape likes it's made of a different, heavier one. I don't think there's anything special about the chain used (other than it's fairly light, and brass). Other sorts of weight to consider are fishing weights and the weighting cord used for drape hems (it's available in a bunch of different weights (measured in oz/yard or g/m, depending on where you live)).

There are a bunch of ways that clothing designers put weight where they want it in special cases like this. If you rent a tail coat, I'd bet that there are some weights in the tails. the reason for that is that the balance of a jacket that long is impossible to get right in the generic case (balance, when refering to a piece of clothing, is a difference in the amount of fabric required in the front compared to the back. Think of all the different places two guys of nominally the same coat size, height, and weight can have bulges, and you'll see the proble.), and the tails won't hang right. They'll either hang open (too long in back) or overlap (too short). Put some weight there, though, and they'll hang just right. (Possibly at the expense of something else not hanging right, but that's probably less noticeable.) Dresses and gowns some times have weight added to the hems -- a dress that's made of some sort of wispy fabric that's intended to float out when the wearer moves can have weight added in strategic places to ensure that it hangs properly when she stops moving. Interfacing, lining, how the lining is attached to the other fabric or internal structure are all used to change how gravity interacts with clothing. So's embroidery.

**Pleater** · 25th June 09, 03:38 AM

Before I got the brain out of UK vocabulary I was thinking of Teddy boys and their drape jackets - but I think you mean curtains.

The weighted inserts for net curtains - the continuous strips, can be inserted into small hems or held behind tapes of a toning colour to give gravitas to a garment.

For a kilt the strip should be cut to allow the material to make a sharp fold, and if possible place it so that there are layers of fabric both sides of it as it lies within the pleats. It would not need to be inserted along every inch of the hem, just a few cm of lightweight strip would hold down a pleat and influence several more around it.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: