Basting the pleats for pressing

[Barb T]

Pressing a kilt isn't difficult work, but it's _very_ easy to wind up with the pleats pressed in the wrong place. Once the pleats are pressed wrong, it's tough to get the creases out and get the pleats back where they should be pressed. Basting the pleats before pressing holds the pleats where they should be. It doesn't take very much time, and it's very much worth the effort.

If you don't baste the pleats, it's very easy to have the pleats "splay" on the ironing board. If this happens, and the pleats are not pressed with absolutely the same width from the bottom of the fell to the bottom of the kilt, you wind up with "the wave", and the kilt no longer is a nice smooth panel across the back. Below, you'll see three kilts. The first one has been ruined by splaying the pleats when they were pressed; the other two have been pressed correctly.

Ugh:



Much better:



Basting helps hold the pleats for pressing. The crucial thing is to make sure that the pleats are basted absolutely the same width from the bottom of the fell to the bottom of the kilt, as in the drawing below:



Thread a needle with white basting thread. Lay the kilt out in your lap with the top edge to the left and the pleats across your lap. Start at the bottom of the kilt at the apron edge. Pick up the apron edge plus the first pleat. Lap the apron edge onto the first pleat at the right point, and take a couple of big stitches (1/2-3/4") through all four thicknesses:



Then pick up the next pleat, lap the previous pleat onto it at the right place, carry the thread from the first stitches, and take two or three stitches through four thicknesses. Because you work your way across the kilt picking up only one pleat at a time, you aren't trying to sew a whole pile of unwieldy cloth all at once.



Work your way across the bottom of the kilt. Make another row just below the bottom of the fell, and a couple more in between. The diagrams shows three stitches in each pleat, but I've found that two holds just fine and takes less time to do:



When it comes time to take out the basting stitches, don't use anything sharp that could snag or cut the kilt. Don't use scissors, a knife, or a seam ripper. Get something blunt like a big knitting needle or a crochet hook. I use a pair of blunt tip tweezers. Rather than cutting the threads and pulling out all the little bits, I just slip the blade of the tweezers under each thread and pull it back through the cloth.

Hope this helps!

Barb T.