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.