Some assembly allowed...Sport Kilt

[fluter]

After my adventure sewing the fell of a SWK economy, I was on the point of ordering a Sport Kilt in the US St. Andrews tartan. I decided not to order its pleats sewn down, but to see what I could to with my trusty needle and thread.

The odd thing about the classic SK is roughly the opposite of the SWK economy model. The SK is built as a tube (without taper) to the target hip measure. Then whether or not the pleats are sewn down at the factory, it's gathered to the elasticized waist.

So whereas I was spreading out the pleats in the fell of the SWK, here I wanted to taper them in toward the waist. The last little bit is complicated by the gathering and elastic, as we will see. This SK was ordered with belt loops; and since SK give you 5 of them, the stitching at the bottom of the loops tends to interfere with any kind artistic tapering. The artistic kind would be done by someone other than YT, you understand. I ended up with 2 tapered, one straight, and so forth.

Here it is flat:


Here it is on:

Looks funny at the top, but it's OK with a belt. I judge this a qualified success, as it sits better than my other SK.

Besides their extreme light weight, appreciated by many people in regions where temperature and humidity converge to triple-digits, SK has several nice tartans unavailable in PV or acrylic. This is one of them: I figured I'd get wonderful mileage from this at least two days a year:

July 4th (Independence Day for the U.S.), when it shows up as red, white, and blue.
14 Juillet (or Bastille Day on this side of the pond), when it doubles as blue, white, and red. Here I am dolled up for the 14th, with a couple of DIY ideas.