I'm tearing apart a Gold Brothers kilt...

[Alan H]

That's right, I'm tearing out a few inches of the waistband and the fringed edge on the over-apron to re-do that edge. This kilt was on sale and I bought it a couple of years ago for a good price. It's always bothered me, though because the over-apron is not centered. UGH. Drives me nuts.

Finally, about 3 months ago I got going on the project to re-do the over-apron. I discovered that while whoever put the kilt together didn't pay attention to where the stripes were, they for darned sure knew how to stitch up a beefy kilt. These seams took a LONG time to tear out. I finished that job this morning before heading into work. It required a substantial amount of careful work.

In other words, while the dumb non-alignment of the over-apron suggests rotten quality control and/or a kiltmaker in Pakistan who wasn't paying attention, I can in no way fault the quality of the machine stitching. The thing is solid as a rock. It's odd that the thing was put-together without centering the over-apron because the over-apron tartan stripes are lined up perfectly with the waistband stripes. How THAT picky detail got done right, and the other detail didn't, befuddles me.

BTW, the way they did the fringed edge on the over-apron would give a traditional kiltmaker the horrors, but the honest truth is that it "works". Until I tore it apart, I didn't know that it was done in the manner in which they pulled it off. I assumed it was done the same way that all the fringed edges that I've done, were done. Nope. On a production line, though...their way is probably quicker.

[Alan H]

The upsides to this project are:

1. I'll get a kilt where the tartan is centered on the over-apron..finally.....though the over-apron will be a bit narrow-ish. I'll just suck in my gut and tighten the straps and deal with the fact that the edge will be about an inch and a half from the reverse pleat.

2. The excess that I cut out will **just** barely make me a set of flashes.

[Father Bill]

Interesting, Alan. Not my thing, but sincere thanks for sharing the perspective.

[Steve Ashton]

We want pics!

[Alan H]

We want pics!

---tempting!

[OC Richard]

Let the thing be torn apart.

(with apologies to Abraham Lincoln.)

[Alan H]

I thought about taking pictures, but this morning I opted to just stitch it all back together again. It's been sitting in my closet, partly ripped out for 3+ months, I just wanted to get the job done.

I'm wearing it now and my brain isn't itching because now I have a prominent stripe in the tartan lined up in the middle of the over-apron.

Regarding the "I hate the Gold Brothers" emoticon, which seems to be missing from XMTS today... I don't hate the Gold Brothers kilts. They found a market, they found a way to satisfy it. That's a uniquely Scottish thing, promulgated by oh... Adam Smith, for one. It's called free markets and capitalism. They produce a kilt which looks reasonable at least, and is available for not a whole lot of $$ for people who can't afford a nice wool kilt, or who don't care to own one. That doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Where I'm with the Gold Brothers haters is that I really don't like marketing the stuff as if it was exactly the same as a really nice, handsewn wool job. However, after walking around the Royal Mile in Edinburgh while I was there, the difference between the "tartan tat" shops and actual kilt shops like Gordon Nicholson or Geoffrey Tailor is quite obvious to anyone with 1/3 of an eye for classy vs tacky. The kilt lasses who sell these kilts at the Games here in California will tell you straight-up that their stuff is not the same as a custom-made wool kilt. I have no problem with that.