On another thread, recently the topic came up about having a four yard box pleated kilt pleated to the sett, and I mentioned that this was possible for some tartans whose sett size is smaller than the norm.

A couple of folks have asked for more details about this, and since that original thread was meant as a review of another kiltmaker's product (Keltoi) I didn't want to hijack the thread by going into too much detail about that. I also didn't want this topic to get lost in another thread, so I thought I'd start a thread specifically about this. John (Keltoi), please feel free to chime in if you like -- same to Barb and anyone else who has experience making 4yd box pleated kilts.

So, the question is, what sett sizes work best if you want to make a box pleated kilt to the stripe?

Well, before I answer that directly, it would be helpful to give some general principles. I base my box pleated kilts as much as I can on the historic examples. The original military box pleated kilts from the 1790s were all pleated to stripe. Civilian kilts were pleated to no pattern at all but soon followed the military example and by the 1820s pleating to stripe was the norm for civilian kilts, as well. Pleating to the stripe remained the norm till the 20th century. So most of the box pleated kilts I make will be pleated to stripe by default.

When I make a box pleated kilt, I ideally want the visible "reveal" of the pleat to be about 1/3 of the size of the sett. This way, when I pleat the kilt to the stripe, the depth of each pleat is about half of the width of the pleat reveal, meaning the opposing pleats will just meet in the center of each "box." This cannot always be done perfectly, depending on the exact measurements I am making the kilt to, and the sett size, but I like to get as close to this as possible. A little bit of a gap or a little bit of an overlap is no real problem. But this is the ideal I always aim for.

As for the size of the pleats themselves, I find that 2.25" at the hips is a good minimum. I've done them as narrow as 2" but I find the pleats don't hang as nicely. The depth of the pleats gets too narrow and they don't want to lie as flat. So I like the pleats to be at least 2.25" wide. This means that the sett repeat would need to be at least 6.75". And for most tartans, this is not a problem. I find sett repeats from 7" to 9" to be very common.

What do I do when I get a sett repeat that is smaller than that? One option is to pleat to alternate stripes by skipping every other pivot point. For example, if a tartan pivots on a yellow stripe and a red stripe, I'd put the yellow stripe on the center of one pleat, then I'd skip past that pivot and center the next pleat on the other (red) pivot. Essentially, I am treating the sett size as if it were 50% larger than it is. So if a tartan has a 6" sett repeat, I would be treating it like it had a 9" sett repeat.

Using my 1/3 rule, that would make the pleats approximately 3" wide at the hips. And if each pleat is designed to show 1/3 of the sett, and I am pretending like my sett is 1.5 times larger than it actually is, then in reality each pleat shows 1/2 the true sett.

The visual effect is the same as pleating to the sett.

Here is an example. This is a kilt I made for myself in the weathered Armstrong tartan.

The sett repeat on this kilt is 6". Each pleat measures 3" across at the hips and is 1.5" deep.

I'm sure there are other ways to achieve pleating to the sett in a 4yd box pleated kilt, but this is how I commonly do it, and I find it works out very well for those tartans with a somewhat smaller than normal sett repeat.