re-re-sizing old band kilts

[OC Richard]

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!)