First Trad Kilt: an ongoing thread

[Alan H]

First up, the material...

I bought 5 yards of this off of ebay...

http://i1.ebayimg.com/03/i/05/03/26/07_1.JPG

DO NOT BUY THIS STUFF for your first kilt. The material itself is really quite nice, but..

1. The sett repeats every TWO repetitions of what seems to be the pattern. Problem is, what's "not the same" is the two strongest lines in the pattern, so you're stuck. A pro could work around it, maybe. I'm going to have to pleat to the stripe to one of the minor stripes in the tartan.

2. The pattern is not woven evenly across the width of the cloth. When I split the cloth, the spacing of the stripes on the left hand edge of the cloth is about 3/4 an inch off from the right hand. This is a major PIA when you join the cloth to make 7 yards.

3. There' s no kilting selvedge, I'm going to have to hem this puppy

4. The thin black line which I'm using to pleat to the stripe doesn't actually define a square. It's 6 inches along the height of the tartan, but 6.5 inches along it's length.

Pick another tartan!!!! I thought I could make a 6 yarder, but to get the number of pleats, it's going to be a 7 yard.