Pleating Wildcat tartan to the sett

[Octobrachium]

Hello Kiltmakers,

I have my copy of TAoK and 7 yards of Wildcat tartan ready and finally (finally!) found the time to start building a kilt. My first very early stumbling block is marking the pleats to the sett. Using the book method, I end up with 8 inches between the apron and the first pleat, when TAoK says it should be 9"-10". Is that still enough?

But also, the pleats I would end up with seem very wide to me. I've used a strip of leftover tartan to try a couple of different markings and test-fold them. I end up with pleats in a size just above 2 inches. Does that make sense? What could I be doing wrong? Maybe someone here has already pleated the Wildcat tartan to the sett properly and can post a picture so I can get a better idea of what I should be doing? I just can't get a good grip on how to get the pleats marked properly at the moment.

Thanks
Hanno

[Barb T]

Something does sound odd. But, how big are you around at the hips, and what is the size of the sett in the piece of Wildcat that you have? And you have 7 yards of tartan, correct?

[Octobrachium]

Hello Barb,
thanks for taking a look at this! My measurements are waist 32 1/2, hips 38 inches, plus 1/2 inch each for future adjustments, and 26 1/2 total length. I am working with 7 yards, formerly double width.

Splits (including the extra 1/2 inch):

Waist apron 17 1/4
waist pleats 15 3/4

hips apron 18 3/4
hips pleats 19 3/4

Looking at the tartan and how I understand the TAoK method, I would mark out the pleats like this:


To me this looks like I am slightly too far apart with the markings. I just now tried to fold the tartan the way I think it would make sense, and then put a marking pin where the center of the pleats would be. Then I get roughly this:





That gives me about 1-inch pleats and a distance of 12 3/4 inches from the center of the last pleat and the end of my front apron flare line. This would be 17 pleats in the whole kilt.

I know I need to be more precise when I eventually start stitching. These were just quick pictures from now, I hope you get the idea.

[Barb T]

I just took a quick look at this - will write more later, but I have to get an assignment written for my students.

On a glance, this looks totally reasonable to me. Pleat size is going to be on the order of an inch (which is reasonable) - I totally misunderstood your original post because I thought you had said that the pleat size was going to be about 2" (which didn't seem reasonable to me).

More later on the deep pleat! Gotta run ATM.

[Octobrachium]

For clarity, yes, I did have giant pleats in the early attempts. The above is already the second try. First attempt looked like this, which happens when you separate the sett into bigger, easier to handle elements:



This, of course, shows the sett better when just laying it out, but it makes the pleats enormous.

[Barb T]

So, here are the issues with your pinned pleating (pic below):

• The tartan has two pivots, one with a wide tan stripe in the center with double white on each side, and one narrow one with the double yellow stripes.
• You've chosen to split the wide tan pivot with half in one pleat and half in the next. That's fine.
• The center of the pivot with the double yellow must be centered a pleat. The way your pleats are currently laid out, that's not the case. And each time you "get to" the yellow stripe in your pleating, it must be centered.
• Pleats must have mirror symmetry on opposite sides of each pivot. So the pleats I've marked with red must be mirror images of each other, ditto the ones marked in blue, and ditto the ones marked in yellow.
• And you can't have an extra stripe creep in (I put a box around an example, although there are several above) - in other words, the color order must be the same as it is in the tartan without extra or missing stripes, even if the sizes of the color stripes don't quite match the tartan. No one will notice that, but, if you have an extra stripe (i.e., a pleat goes too far into the next color stripe), that will ruin the "to the sett" look of the pleats.

So, you need to pick elements for the pleats so that the tartan pattern is reproduced as faithfully as possible, while keeping pivots centered in pleats (or split between two pleats), having other prominent stripes either up the edges of pleats or in the centers of pleats, and not losing prominent stripes in the pleat taper toward the waist.

Given that you are a trim guy, and the tartan sett is about 8.5", and you have 7 yards of tartan, I would guess that you ought to have 21-23 pleats in the kilt, not 17. That says to me that you should be aiming for smaller elements (maybe 3/4" or so at the hips). If you want some suggestions on how I approach it, let me know.

[The Wizard of BC]

If I can add one tip to Barbs instructions may help you visualize pleating to Sett.

I use the strip from the center of my fabric that will eventually be the top band.
I cut one small piece of this strip that is long enough to pass around my butt from side seam to side seam.



I cut this strip so that the Tartan element that you have chosen for the center of the apron is in the center of the strip.

As I am pinning my pleat samples I will lay this strip right on the pleats.

If everything lines up you are right on.



I also use this strip when basting the kilt to make sure that the kilt is staying the right size.

Anytime you want to check that everything is fine, just pull out your strip and lay it on the kilt.