Enlarged Sett

[davidlpope]

My large sett Hunting MacMillan kilt has a sett size of about 14". The kilt is pleated to the yellow stripe on the black, which occurs twice per sett, making the pleats appear about every 7".

I had to really play around with the threadcount, though, in order to get it to work out this way. With the Chattan tartan you could either pleat to stripe-red-stripe-red-stripe,etc. or minimize the red in the tartan while maximizing the stripes portion and then pleat to the leading stripe of the striped portion and the trailing stripe of the first portion. That may be hard to imagine, so I'll try come up with a visual.

[Barb T]

Bottom line is that the number of pleats is governed by the sett. If you can only get one pleat per sett (either to the stripe or to the sett), then you can roughly divide 5.5 yards of fabric (5.5X36"=198") by the size of the sett to get the number of pleats possible (that's because the rest of the 8 yards will be used in the apron, underapron, facings, deep pleat, and inverted pleat).

So, for a sett of 15", you'd only have 198/15 = 19 pleats if you pleated to the stripe and a few less if you pleated to the sett. If you had an element that occurred twice per sett, though, you could easily have a "normal" number of pleats (because you would have an "effective sett size" of 7.5"). Depending on the tartan, it might be possible to pleat to the sett by picking up an occasional pleat at less than a full sett, giving you maybe 19 or 21 pleats. Depends on the sett.

So, bottom line, in general, a huge sett can introduce huge pleating problems.

Before I could give you any other specific advice, I'd need to know what you had in mind for a specific sett size.

And remember that you can't ask to have a sett size enlarged a specific percentage - the number of threads in a stripe need to be an even number for weaving, so that has ramifications for the entire sett size. So, although in PhotoShop, you can take a sett of 10" and make it 12.5", it's very likely that it can't actually be _woven_ that way. For example, the tartan that you show has some very narrow stripes that would be 2 threads wide in the version shown, but would have to be 4 threads wide in an enlargement. That would double the whole sett or change the proportions. You can't just have those white stripes be 1.25X what they are in the version shown.

[creagdhubh]

Bottom line is that the number of pleats is governed by the sett. If you can only get one pleat per sett (either to the stripe or to the sett), then you can roughly divide 5.5 yards of fabric (5.5X36"=198") by the size of the sett to get the number of pleats possible (that's because the rest of the 8 yards will be used in the apron, underapron, facings, deep pleat, and inverted pleat).

So, for a sett of 15", you'd only have 198/15 = 19 pleats if you pleated to the stripe and a few less if you pleated to the sett. If you had an element that occurred twice per sett, though, you could easily have a "normal" number of pleats (because you would have an "effective sett size" of 7.5"). Depending on the tartan, it might be possible to pleat to the sett by picking up an occasional pleat at less than a full sett, giving you maybe 19 or 21 pleats. Depends on the sett.

So, bottom line, in general, a huge sett can introduce huge pleating problems.

Before I could give you any other specific advice, I'd need to know what you had in mind for a specific sett size.

And remember that you can't ask to have a sett size enlarged a specific percentage - the number of threads in a stripe need to be an even number for weaving, so that has ramifications for the entire sett size. So, although in PhotoShop, you can take a sett of 10" and make it 12.5", it's very likely that it can't actually be _woven_ that way. For example, the tartan that you show has some very narrow stripes that would be 2 threads wide in the version shown, but would have to be 4 threads wide in an enlargement. That would double the whole sett or change the proportions. You can't just have those white stripes be 1.25X what they are in the version shown.

Thank you so very much for your detailed reply, Barb. Obviously, you know your stuff! You are my definitive kiltmaker of choice (since you did such an outstanding job on my Macpherson kilt in the Reproduction colour scheme), and I sincerely hope that when I am ready to 'pull the trigger" and talk specifics, that you will be willing to accept and take on my commission.

Everything you stated makes complete sense to me, thank you again. As I eluded to in my initial post, I knew that the pleating would pose some what of a problem/challenge once you begin enlarging the sett, especially with the Chattan tartan, which is a fairly large sett to begin with. I want as many pleats as possible with the sett still being larger than what is customarily woven for the Chattan tartan. I am NOT a fan of box or knife pleated kilts that do not have a good amount of pleats; I am far too fond of that "swoosh" and the all too familiar "swing of the kilt" that numerous pleats in an heavyweight tartan produce. So, with that being said and back to question number one stated in my intial post, how large could I go with the Chattan sett and still maintain a decent amount of pleats?

[creagdhubh]

My large sett Hunting MacMillan kilt has a sett size of about 14". The kilt is pleated to the yellow stripe on the black, which occurs twice per sett, making the pleats appear about every 7".

I had to really play around with the threadcount, though, in order to get it to work out this way. With the Chattan tartan you could either pleat to stripe-red-stripe-red-stripe,etc. or minimize the red in the tartan while maximizing the stripes portion and then pleat to the leading stripe of the striped portion and the trailing stripe of the first portion. That may be hard to imagine, so I'll try come up with a visual.

Thanks for your help and advice, David. It is much appreciated. This is precisely why I mentioned you and your Hunting MacMillan kilt, because you have been down this road before; albeit, it was quite obviously a different tartan, yet the overall process is much the same.

[Jock Scot]

I have been down this route too Kyle, although not on the scale you are talking about. If I remember correctly I went from the more normal 7 inch sett to a10.5 inch sett. Now, one thing I discovered later, my fault for not researching properly, is Dalgliesh's supurb quality heavyweight tartan is 15 oz, not really what I call heavyweight, but it does make a fine kilt nevertheless. However, I did discover later from Nick in conversation that I could have had the same tartan woven in their "band spec" weight tartan of 18 oz. I would have prefered that weight had I known, although the kilt would have been even more heavy that it is now!

My Dalgliesh special weave, for reference.

[creagdhubh]

I have been down this route too Kyle, although not on the scale you are talking about. If I remember correctly I went from the more normal 7 inch sett to a10.5 inch sett. Now, one thing I discovered later, my fault for not researching properly, is Dalgliesh's supurb quality heavyweight tartan is 15 oz, not really what I call heavyweight, but it does make a fine kilt nevertheless. However, I did discover later from Nick in conversation that I could have had the same tartan woven in their "band spec" weight tartan of 18 oz. I would have prefered that weight had I known, although the kilt would have been even more heavy that it is now!

Wonderful, Jock! Thanks for sharing this bit of information. That is definitely something to consider.

[Calgacus]

Hi Kyle,

I've been toying with a custom weave myself and so have encountered some of the issues that others have already posted about above.

I'm no expert*, but the way I would approach it would be from the ground up. You are essentially trying to design your own tartan but within the constraints of the pre-existing Chattan tartan, and sett sizes that work best for the construction of the kilt.

Dalgleish's 15oz tartan has 40 threads per inch and the ideal sett size from a kilt maker's point of view is 5"-7", so the ideal thread count for the sett is 200-280tpi. As a result, there appear to be a lot of tartans with a sett size of ~6" and ~240tpi.

The Chattan (clan) sett listed by Dalgleish, which appears to be the correct one to me, has a thread count of 396, making it virtually 10" (Dalgleish's tartan designer comes up with 9.2" but I believe that to be inaccurate).

So, first question, is 10" big enough for you?

Assuming it isn't, you want to make it bigger, but you are constrained by the proportions of the colours in the tartan and the fact that you really want to keep threads as multiples of two. As the Chattan tartan has some stripes as narrow as two threads, the next logical size up is four threads, thus doubling the entire sett size if you want to keep the proportions of all the stripes in the sett. This would give you a thread count of 792 and a size of 20". That's a BIG sett.

Now, you could compromise and scale by 1.5. This would mean that some stripes had widths of three threads, which makes for ugly things happening where the stripes intersect. Others would need their proportions changed as there are stripes of seven threads, which, being a prime number, can't easily be multiplied by anything less than two. You'd have to make some stripes of ten threads and some of eleven threads. If you are happy to make these compromises, you'd have a sett of about 594 threads, or 15"

Now you'd have to consult with your kilt maker to see how many pleats, and of what depth you'd get with a 10", 15" and 20" sett, if they are indeed all workable sizes.

A final option is to ask Dalgleish how many threads there are per inch in their 18oz tartan. It's a fair assumption that the threads will be proportionally thicker, so, as the 15oz cloth has 40tpi, that's 0.025". Now scale accordingly and the 18oz cloth should hopefully have a thread size of 0.025/15*18=0.03" or 33.3tpi.

Now, if that really is the thread density of the 18oz cloth, that gives us sett sizes of just under 12" for the regular sett, just under 18" for the 1.5x sett, and almost 24" for the 2x sett.

Finally, if none of the above sett sizes are any good, you'd be looking at tweaking the Chattan sett by hand and trying to maintain how it looks. At that point, I'm outta here!!


*Best case scenario, I get lucky and some of what I say is right. Worst case scenario, I'm talking poop.

[McMurdo]

Speaking of Large Setts I thought I would put this here, there is so much here to emulate.

[Tobus]

Hey Kyle, something that occurred to me... Have you considered a tartan tweed fabric for this project? I know a while back we had a thread about tartan tweed kilts, and possibly even some information on custom tartan patterns that could be woven in tweed, although my search-fu is pretty weak. All I've been able to come up with are dead links. I know there are some popular tartan tweeds that have been woven in rather large setts (like Gunn and Hunting MacLeod, which seem to come up easily on a Google search for tartan tweed).

I distinctly remember someone mentioning a tweed mill that would do special tartan runs, but for the life of me I can't find any information on it!

My thinking, though, is that it might be easier to get a larger sett with tweed due to the nature of tweed as opposed to a standard wool tartan fabric. Not to mention, the lovely coarse nature of tweed might be a wonderful complement to a larger sett in terms of aesthetics. For example, here's a kilt that Matt Newsome made in tweed. I'm unsure of the tartan (MacPherson?) or the source of the cloth, but it seems that the sett size is much larger than usual. I'm wondering if perhaps there's a case to be made for getting your tartan made out of tweed to get a larger sett size without having to alter the proportions. I'm not enough of a tweed expert to know if this is realistic, but perhaps it's worth an enquiry through Barb T. to see if she might be able to come up with a supplier willing to do a run like this? (Though a minimum yardage will surely apply.)

[Barb T]

Just remember that the same problems arise with pleating, regardless of the fabric.