re-re-sizing old band kilts

**OC Richard** · 8th June 13, 07:57 PM

So our startup band bought 20-odd kilts from another pipe band. (Our band: Long Beach Fire. Kilts' original band: Regina Police.)

What an adventure, going through a pile of old kilts and examining each one for size.

We quickly discovered that many of the kilts had been re-sized at some point. Usually the kilt's original size was what we needed, so I've been working on them to restore their original measurements.

The one I'm working on now had been mutilated to make it smaller in the waist: a second hole had been cut for the under-apron strap to go through!

I sewed shut the neo-hole and moved the buckle back to its original position... but then I started to think about that second hole: it probably went right through the stabilizer, didn't it? Meaning that the only way to do it right would be to take off the lining and sew in a new stabilizer, at least a partial one?

(The other stuff is easy: sewing pleats which have started to come open, moving buckles, taking out hems, fixing belt loops which have come loose. It's easy to spot the alterations, because the kilts were originally sewn with red thread and whoever did the modifications used green thread. I could have made it easier on whoever might work on the kilts next by using black thread but no, I'm being evil and using red thread!)

**Barb T** · 15th June 13, 10:33 AM

Maybe you can take a pic of the offending second hole, both from the inside and from the outside, and we can give you advice?

Just as a heads up for anyone contemplating adjustments to make a kilt smaller - just move the underapron strap toward the center of the underapron - this accomplishes precisely the same thing as adding a new buttonhole in terms of allowing someone to buckle the under apron tighter but doesn't require cutting the kilt.

**OC Richard** · 16th June 13, 04:58 AM

Thanks Barbara! Too bad I didn't take "before" photos of that kilt with the 2nd hole. It's been sewn up and given out to a bandmember. It seems to be fairly stable, even with the compromised stabilizer: I tried pulling on the buckles and the back of the kilt didn't stretch.

I spent a couple hours yesterday taking out the hem in one kilt and pressing out the crease the hem-maker had pressed in and pressing the bottom of all the pleats. Easy but tedious because I don't have a press.

That'll teach me to take Elsie's class! Now I'm the band's kilt-fixer. (Just saw Elsie last weekend, at her workshop at Blandford & Son here in SoCal.)