I bought Barbara's book the art of kilt making. It's a fantastic read. So I tried out chapter 4 understanding the structure on my own 16oz wool kilt. Now I'm totally puzzled. If my maths is right and I understood the chapter about the no of pleats then my kilt should comply with the book. It doesn't. I worked out 13 pleats. My kilt has 27. Here is my maths

34" waist, 38" hips. Tartan is ancient Wilson 16oz, set appears 15 1/2".

Calculated on the hip - pleats should be compressed into half of hip measurement making it 19" with 19" for the under apron and another 19" for the apron with a total wrap around of 38 ".

If I'm using 8 yards of cloth. That makes 8 yards (288") minus 38" (for both aprons) minus a further yard (36" for facings on apron) or 74". That leaves 288" minus 74"= 214" (5 yards & 34") to pleat across 19".

So to pleats. 214" ÷ 15.5"(sett size)= 13.8 pleats.

As I said earlier my kilt has 27 pleats.

Either my math is off... I have not understood Barbara's Instructions... I have measured the sett wrong... or Wilson Ancient is not a symetrical tartan?

Can anyone help?

I can't seem to attach a pic of the tartan. But I will later