Folding the Great Kilt

[tommyred3]

Hello everyone, I've recently decided to buy the material for a great kilt. 4.5 yards of 100% wool about 55-ish inches wide. I was wondering if anyone here has some interesting ways of folding the great kilt's top section after wrapping it. The kind of stuff that you won't see your typical braveheart fan wearing around.

Pleating suggestions would be nice too, I've been practicing with a blanket and I accidentally discovered how to do box pleats that actually stay quite nicely.

Thanks you for reading this, and thanks to the people who run this forum because it has been an amazing help already.

[Geoff Withnell]

I don't believe I have ever seen a box pleated great kilt being worn. Cool.

[tommyred3]

I don't believe I have ever seen a box pleated great kilt being worn. Cool.

I'll post pictures with a simple tutorial once I get my plaid.

[Laird O'the Cowcaddens]

I don't know much about this topic, however, I suggest that you might want to start your search with the people over at the Celtic Croft Store (one of our advertisers on this Forum). Please follow-up with photos of your research results.

[Luke MacGillie]

Im going to have to purposely take some photos, without weapons. All my photos of me wearing a great kilt also involve me using weapons, and end up getting banished to the weapons forum lest someone lose muscle control over the sight of a tool.

Anyway, You could look for some of my posts.

I still have not put a drawstring or belt in my plaid, but I do have one that I sewed the pleats in.

I tend to stick to actual period descriptions and what can be inferred from paintings, not practices that originated in the costume trailer while filming Lethal Claymore!

Best think I can say is divorce yourself from any desire to replicate a modern kilt, the pleats are not going to be sharp, if you do any sort of living while wearing the garment, its going to not look as good as when you first put it on and Im sure I will think of something more as this thread goes along

[Derekc5555]

How do you pleat to the set?

[Steve Ashton]

The forerunner of the kilt was the Leine and Brat.



Some suggest that the Belted Plaid was the brat with the belt from the Leine worn on the outside.

This is known today as a matchcoat.



This sure makes a lot more sense to me than this idea that you see all the time at Ren Faires without a shred of historical evidence behind it.



The guys who lay all this fabric out on the ground are usually using modern kilt fabric. They go on and one about how practical this is. Would you really want to go through this whole process every day?
These same guys will say how you roll up in this to sleep at night. Would it just make more sense to sleep in your blanket?

[Luke MacGillie]

Well, I hate to have a disagreement with you Steve.

First off, Im of the opinion that matchcoats are a form of ethnic dress, as matchcoat is a Anglicized version of an Algonquin word that more or less translates into "wearing robe" Also as much as I admire the work of Mark Baker and company, they did admit they were far from perfect, and their matchcoat wearing, by Longhunters actually is pretty slim on historical accounts.

Secondly, if you pick up a copy of "A Bard of Wolfe's Army", by Chapman and McCulloch, which is the annotated diary of Volunteer Sgt Thompson of the 78th, on service here in the Americas during the F&I war, there are a couple references to both rolling on the floor to put on the great kilt, and also using it as a blanket.

https://www.amazon.com/Bard-Wolfes-A.../dp/189694163X


But I do agree that trying to turn single width cloth into a great kilt is only going to lead to making something that never was in history! :-)

[figheadair]

But I do agree that trying to turn single width cloth into a great kilt is only going to lead to making something that never was in history! :-)

Luke, I know what you mean but that's not what you said. Just to avoid confusion, all 18th and early 19th century plaids were made from single width cloth which was joined to make double width material.

[Luke MacGillie]

Great!, now I feel like a politician :-) arguing over the definition of it, or it's......





Yes, cut your single width in half, but the ends together, and then you are on the right track.

Taking 8 or 12 yards of single width and make it look like Braveheart, AKA Lethal Claymore and your on the wrong track!

Now I hope that this photo is doctored enough to not run afoul, but I think it makes a good point as to why pleating to the set, or the stripe in a great kilt is a moot point.....

While I could have pulled the top of the plaid up a bit more, I needed it to be functional vice fashionable, and most if not all of the pleating is hidden by the drape of the top of the cloth. Hopefully no one gets triggered by the censored out "Bad Stuff"