Minimum depth of a deep pleat

[Barb T]

The purpose of the deep pleat is to allow you to walk easily without pulling on the pleats. 8" would be skimpy, but you could do it. 14" is way too much - you don't want the folded edge of the deep pleat anywhere near the center of the apron at the top edge of the kilt, and, if it's 14" at the bottom edge, it's going to be more like 16 or more at the top because of taper.

How the edge of the apron meets the pleats is rarely a matter of choice if you want to use the amount of tartan you have. I very rarely take it into consideration because all of the other decisions are more important. Center back has to match center front, if you're pleating to the sett. One center stripe looks a lot better than another. Center front has to match other kilts if you're making a set of kilts or if the kilt is a band kilt. Those are far more important criteria to me.

Because you are pleating to the sett, the center front and back stripes have to match, which trumps any decision about what the apron edge looks like.

As Mike says, I put in a hidden pleat whenever the last pleat is either too close to or to far from the apron edge. I honestly don't see any down side.