Pleat sizing

[The Wizard of BC]

Barb,

Just a nit-pic here but about three posts up you stated that to mark pleats on a self colored kilt you decide how deep you want the pleat to be, double that and mark .
I think what you meant was depth of pleat plus reveal.

I use 10 inches between pleat edge and pleat edge which give me 2" reveal + 4" depth....or 1" reveal + 4.5" depth.

Sorry, but the engineer in me gets picky some times.

[Barb T]

Hi Steve

You're absolutely right, and I know what you mean about being picky. I'm a scientist, and I like precision, too. Sometimes, though, people who are new to kiltmaking get bogged down in lots of numbers, and what I described is a reasonable approximation (though not entirely accurate!) for a kilt with traditional-sized pleats.

The kilts that I make have much smaller pleats than yours (more like 3/4" than 2"), so the depth is, in fact, pretty close to half the distance between marks. If you put marks every 8" for a self-color kilt, and have pleats that are 3/4" in size (the "reveal"), the pleat depth will be exactly (8-3/4)/2, or 3 5/8", only 3/8" less than the rough calculation of 4". On the other hand, if you have a reveal of 2", you can't get a very good approximation by dividing the distance between pleat marks in half. (8-2)/2 would give a 3" pleat depth, a full inch less than the rough approximation of 4".

When you're pleating to the sett in a tartan, you go over more than a full repeat to get to the next pleat, and that pretty much compensates for the amount taken up in the reveal, if you make traditional-sized pleats. So, yeh, dividing the distance by two is a less close approximation for a self-color kilt or a kilt pleated to the stripe than it is for a kilt pleated to the sett, but it's a decent rough approximation. If you want to know the pleat depth precisely, you need to subtract the pleat size (reveal) from the distance between pleat marks before you divide by two.

Thanks, Steve, for being picky!!

Cheers,

Barb

[beerbecue]

This is why I need to buy wool next time.

The material I have now has small setts (5 7/8" and 6"). This makes for what seems to me a rather shallow pleat, but it would take far too much fabric to double the sett just to make deeper pleats.

[Barb T]

BBQ said

The material I have now has a small sett (5 7/8" and 6"). This makes for what seems to me a rather shallow pleat,

That's actually a pretty typical sett for 11-12 oz wool tartan. You have to get up into the 14-16 oz range before most tartans have bigger setts (unless you have a tartan with an ABAC- or ABCD-type repeat, like the Black Watch family of tartans). Most kilts that dancers wear have setts that are 6" or smaller, and they swing just fine. So, deep pleats are nice but a well-made kilt will swing just fine even if the pleats aren't super deep. The pic below shows a kilt with a 6" sett - it has pretty nice swing even though the pleats are less than 3" deep.

Barb

[Barb T]

Look also at Bear's reply to Patty's Newbie posting at http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3042

The kilts in those pictures sure have great swing, and the tartans have repeats less than 6". I think I'm right in saying that she used my book to learn how to make kilts.

Cheers,

Barb

[beerbecue]

Thanks for the reassurance!

I guess after pressing they will look better.

That kilt is beautiful the way the lighter colors come out with the swing.

Now that I am thinking of it, should the fell be placed at a dominant line, or just at the length it should be?

[Barb T]

Hi BBQ

The swing of a kilt is largely controlled by how far down the fell is stitched. If the fell is too short, the pleats wobble around kind of chaotically. If the fell is too long, the pleats won't swing. The rule of thumb of a fell stitched down 1/3 of the total finished length of the kilt (including the rise but not the hem) produces a great swing. It doesn't matter at all where that falls relative to a prominent stripe. So, just measure the distance, and start stitching there.

This also means that, if you lengthen a kilt very much, you really need to lengthen the fell as well by stitching each pleat down farther, if you want to have the best swing and not have wobbly pleats. If you have to shorten a kilt, there's nothing you can do except live with a reduced swing. You can't shorten the fell both because of the steeking and because the pleats are cut out.

Cheers!

Barb

[Jimmy Carbomb]

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pay attention to Barb's last post. It's CRITICAL to the finished product, and a fact that not many kiltmakers actually realize or use. This is why there are so many kilts that have absolutely no uniform hang to them!

And like she said about the pleat depth... it's not so much how deep they are, but how properly they're sewn-up (Reader's Digest version).

If you can get those points down in sewing-up your first kilt, then you'll be WAY ahead of the game when it comes to making more.

[beerbecue]

I have been stitching the fell beginning at the point that is 1/3 the length, and not using a dominant feature.

I guess it is just coincidence that many of the kilts I have seen recently seem to have the fell at a dominant feature (or the tartans just have enough stripes that the fell falls on one).

Thanks Barb and Jimmy

More to sew tonight!!

[Barb T]

My suspicion is that, for the kilts you're talking about, the decision was made on the basis of the tartan, not using the 1/3 rule. Even with "stripey" tartans, I rarely make a kilt where the fell starts on a prominent stripe - probably because I'm anal about the 1/3 measurement!

Barb