Should I pleat to the sett, or to the stripe?

[unixken]

In a few days I will be ordering a pair of kilts. One of them will be in Buchanan Hunting, in Ancient colors, in a 15oz D.C. Dalgliesh weave. All my other tartan kilts are pleated to the sett, and I'm considering having this one done to the stripe, for something different. However, I'm wondering if it would look either too washed out, or too "muddy", depending on which stripe(s) were considered. (Note: I'd be perfectly happy to have this pleated to the sett, like my other kilts, if everyone thinks that this particular fabric may be a less than ideal candidate for pleating to the stripe.) I expect to place the order as early as this coming Friday (Feb 15).

Thoughts?



[EDIT: I mentioned that my others were pleated to the sett... that's not entirely true in the strictest sense. My Aberdeen District, is pleated not quite to the sett, given the enormous sett size (though it does have a pattern to the way it was pleated).]

[David Thorpe]

Beautiful tartan. My personal choice would be to the bright green stripe, but I admit to being partial to military pleats.

[Chas]

I am a 'pleat to the sett' man, for the simple reason, that you know what you are getting. Pleating to the stripe is always guesswork regardless of how good the cut and paste photoshopping is.

If you are going for a tartan because you like the tartan, why then change it to something different?

Regards

Chas

[unixken]

I wondered about that, David, but I'm thinking that pleating to anything other than the thin tan stripe between the two wide dark brown stripes, would result in a kilt that shows nothing but tan across the whole set of pleats, both inside and outside of the pleats. The dark brown would be buried too deep into the pleats, I think, to display any kind of contrast in the "reveal", and you'd see nothing but tan on the outside, and tan on the inside. On the other hand, if the dark stripes show on the outside, a reveal of tan inside the pleats would provide a contrast.

[unixken]

I am a 'pleat to the sett' man, for the simple reason, that you know what you are getting. Pleating to the stripe is always guesswork regardless of how good the cut and paste photoshopping is.
Chas

And there is a lot to be said for that, Chas.

[Connaughton]

Sir,
This might be of help in solving the question of what will it look like, a year ago I had this discussion between my kiltmaker and myself.

After ordering a kilt I scanned the swatch sample and then cloned the various considered strips to get an idea what it would look like. As we had some time between the order and arrival of tartan. The thread describes the basic and my thoughts of the results. Point being, you can actually get a decent enough idea without to much work with Photoshop or other graphic image program.

I will admit I just prefer pleat to stripe so for me it was which stripe not if to stripe, and I do discuss my thoughts on each and how I ended up where I did. If you do something like I did, you'll get a decent enough sense of just how different you will look coming and going.

BTW: If you read down my thread there is a Murray of Tullibardine, with tailor tape, that has a narrow black stripe that my be akin to the narrow dark stripe set between the dark tan in your sample.

Hope that this is helpful to you and best to you. Oh and I do like the tartan. Will make a smart pleat to stripe.

Connaughton

[Barb T]

Would be worth looking at several posts I made in the following thread:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...ou-want-65675/

[unixken]

Here's a rough idea of what either of two of the stripes would look like, but this is without even knowing how large the sett size is, or the width of any of the stripes within the sett, and consequently how wide or narrow such pleats would end up being.

[Barb T]

Remember that the "look" will depend entirely on the size of the pleats! Might look like this, and, then again, the yellow might be a lot more prominent!

Oh - and I'm not seeing where the dark edge stripes are coming from in the example on the left?

[unixken]

Remember that the "look" will depend entirely on the size of the pleats! Might look like this, and, then again, the yellow might be a lot more prominent!

I do remember reading that thread, Barb. And your "Pleating Challenges" threads. Lots of very good information in those threads! I've been keeping all that in mind as I consider all of this. As my previous indicated, I don't know at this stage how wide the pleats would be, and that would certainly influence the possible options. And I would hope that if the pleats could be striped at either of the points I played around with above, that nothing would be lost in the tapering at the fell.