Pleat Depth

[Barb T]

Hi!

A kilt with 10 deep pleats doesn't look much like a traditional kilt, which isn't necessarily bad. Traditional kilts typically have 20-30 pleats or so.

Realize, though, that, with tartan, you can't simply choose the number of pleats and pleat depth, because the number of pleats and pleat depth are governed by the repeat (the sett) of the tartan (roughly, each pleat takes up one repeat of the sett). If the sett is big, you have fewer repeats to work with and, hence, fewer (but deeper) pleats). If the sett is small, you have more repeats to work with, hence more (but shallower) pleats.

If you have a smallish amount of tartan, you can get more pleats into a kilt by pleating it to the stripe, because each pleat takes up _exactly_ one sett, whereas, in pleating to the sett, each pleat takes up roughly one sett plus and inch or so. If the sett is really small, you can put a double sett into each pleat, but that cuts the number of pleats in half.

If that's confusing, I'll try explaining it again!!

Barb