Help with Droopy Apron

[Arnot]

Hi Arnot,

OK - so here's my take. Someone with a 38 1/2" waist is not someone with a big beer belly, so there is no reason to add extra to the hip measurement in order to get the apron to hang straight down. Also, it looks from the photos that, even though he has a muscular butt (i.e., not a flat butt), there's still way too much in the pleats at the hips because there's a wave in the back of the kilt as well. The kilt should sit smoothly across the back at the hips in the pleats, and the photos show clearly that you could pinch an inch or more on each side in the pleats before the kilt would lie flat across his butt.

If I had those measurements (and those are almost exactly the same measurements as kilt I just made for my son-in law), here's what I would do:

waist 38 1/2: put 20" in the apron and 18 1/2" in the pleats at the waist.
hips 45 1/2: put 22 1/4" in the apron and 23 1/4" in the pleats at the hips.

So, comparing with the actual kilt measurements, it looks like, at the hips, the apron is over an inch bigger across than I would make it, and the pleats are more than 2" bigger across (which is consistent with being able to pinch an inch or so on each side of the kilt in the pleats).

The big issue is the pleats - they're too wide at the hips for his measurements. I suspect that this is fundamentally the reason why the apron also wants to wave. The pleats section is too big across at the hips, and the wave is pushing forward toward the apron on each side because the pleats are stiffer than the apron. Because the pleats are not too big at the waist (and might even be a bit on the skimpy side), taking one pleat out on each side can't solve the problem. Having said all this, it's possible that taking the apron in on both sides some would help (at least it might help the wave in the apron). It certainly would be easy to test by just pinning a small fold at the edge apron and underapron next to the pleats to see if that helps.

In the long run, I personally would never be happy with that kilt if it were mine. And I suspect that is true of someone who is a pipe major as well and must wear his kilt a lot. My advice would be to sell the kilt and have a new one made.

Hope this helps!

It helps a lot. You have confirmed some of my thoughts and pointed out other things I hadn't thought of. I will also be able to do a better job explaining why he should get another kilt.

Thanks so much for all the help. It is greatly appreciated.

[Barb T]

Absitively posolutely!