How an Engineer lays out pleats

[Aspiringloser]

You could still pleat an even number to the sett, you'd just have a center back seam instead of a center back pleat.

[Steve Ashton]

Of course you could, and no one could stop you.

But if you use a prominent vertical stripe down the front of the apron that stripe would be split by the pleat edge in the center back. It may get lost as you taper in the Fell.
So it is more common, and accepted, to center the same stripe in a single pleat at the center back. This would result in a odd number of pleats.

[GrainReaper]

Your cheater template has brought making my own kilt nearer to a reality. And the photos just help solidify it in my head. Now it makes sense to me, thank you for this thread!

[GrainReaper]

Time to incorporate this into my "TAoK" info pool!

[Stoff]

I was wondering if you would mind if I compiled you tutorial into a single document for creating an additional kilt making book in my collection.

Thank you,
Stoff

[The Wizard of BC]

I don't mind at all Stoff, that is why I posted it.

I have been trying for years now to write the companion book to TAoK but I am not a writer.

This would be a large part of Chapter 3 to The Art of Contemporary Kiltmaking so eventually it will be available to anyone.

[Barb T]

Steve said:

A general rule is that you do not want an element of the Tartan pattern right on the edge of a pleat.

Actually, this isn't true. There are many pleating situations where the best option is to hold a stripe along the edge of a pleat and accommodate the taper entirely on the other side. In the kilt below, the majority of the pleats are done this way in order to preserve the prominent stripes. It's a rare kilt that I lay out that is pleated to the sett and doesn't have at least a few pleats done this way. It's one of the reasons that I don't use a mathematical method for laying out pleats. The arrows below show the stripe that is held along the edge of each pleat.



and a view so that you can see the overall pleating. I'll admit that this kilt is a bit unusual in having so many pleats done this way, but it was absolutely necessary because of how "stripey" the Scott is.

[Barb T]

But if you use a prominent vertical stripe down the front of the apron that stripe would be split by the pleat edge in the center back. It may get lost as you taper in the Fell.

This would _only_ be true if you tapered both sides of the two pleats. To make it work, all you have to do is simply hold the split center along the edge of the pleat and accommodate the taper along the other edge. Here's an example (comes from a long-ago post at http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...-stripe-32855/)

So it is more common, and accepted, to center the same stripe in a single pleat at the center back.

Although it is certainly more common to have a center back pleat and an odd number of pleats, it really isn't a question of being either accepted or not accepted. Whatever makes the best pleating is what's needed.

The photo below shows a split pivot that would make a perfectly acceptable center back. The center front of the kilt would center the light brown pivot. The kilt would have an even number of pleats. You'll see that all the pleat taper is taken up in the dark brown on the sides of the pleats opposite the center back, which keeps the light brown pivot the same width all the way to the top of the kilt, which is what you want. At a distance (or squinting), this looks no different from having centered the light brown stripe, which would actually have been impossible because of the number of narrow stripes adjacent to the pivot. If I had tried to center the light brown in a single center back pleat, the narrow white stripe on the edge would have partially vanished in the taper. And the white stripe is such a strong tartan element that it would definitely not have been acceptable to lose all or part.

[Barb T]

Sorry - I have one more comment about choosing pleats. Steve and I make different kinds of kilts, so my comment below is specifically about making a trad hand stitched kilt. I'm not posting this to disagree with how Steve makes his kilts but to clarify for those who use TAoK and are trying to make a trad kilt by traditional methods what would be acceptable and what wouldn't in a trad kilt.

One of the expectations of a trad kilt pleated to the sett is that pleats on each side of a pivot are actually mirror images of one another. In one of Steve's posts, he included a photo of a pleating that does reproduce the sett but that results in the pleats on each side of the pivot not being mirror images. I've put yellow arrows at point that should be mirror images if you were making a trad kilt.



For those of you who are making a traditional hand sewn kilt, this would actually not be acceptable. It doesn't mean that the pleating is wrong for other kinds of kilts, but it's not something that you would see in traditional kilt.

[Steve Ashton]

Hi Barb,

I'm sorry but I do not understand your comment in post #49 above.

Yes, I guess I could have pinned the pleats a bit better --
And yes I guess I could be a better photographer --
Also in this example I am showing the bottom of the pleats at the hem, so they are simply pinned temporarily. They have not yet been basted or pressed into their final relationship.

The pleat with the multiple red stripes is the first pleat right of the apron. To its left is the apron itself so of course the Tartan pattern does not align.

And when, after the final pressing, the tartan pattern created in the pleats is an exact copy of the entire Tartan how can it not be correct?

In this kilt, when it was finished, I could lay a strip of Tartan across the pleats and the Tartan pattern is re-created exactly.
No element of the Tartan is lost in the tapering.
How can that possibly be incorrect?