Following Barb T.'s book...

[Jimmy Carbomb]

Hi guys

The big problem with using too little fabric is that you can't do a true pleating either to the sett or to the stripe without having the pleats really big. That's not a disaster, but it won't look like a traditional kilt. If you want to use a small amount of fabric, find a tartan with a really small sett (like maybe 4" or so). Won't have the swing of a kilt with larger sett and more fabric, but for a first kilt, it's a good alternative.

Cheers!

Barb

I'm glad that you answered that one here. There was another thread about the same subject, and I attempted to explain about the wider pleats too, and how it would be a wonderfully made casual-looking kilt.

It's also gratifying to see that guys are willing to use the same techniques in the traditionals, to sew-up a "casual". It will make for a much better kilt, and will look sharper around the hips.

Take the time that it takes to sew-up the 4-yard "Barb-method" kilt, and extend it by 4-times when you work up to an 8-yarder. You have to allot for the time for the thinner and extra pleats, and also add-in the time to let your fingers heal!!! It's well worth it, and will only make your finger tips better for the next dozen that you make!

[Phil Wright]

I'm after any more hints & tips even after reading Barb's book. I am pleating 1/2" military pleats with a shallow reduction of about 1/6". Whenever I try sewing them down I get more waves than in the North Sea. Done the pulling tight & hold bit, but especially as it's military pleats, anything other than perfect looks a mess. Any help appreciated.
Phil

[M. A. C. Newsome]

About the size of the pleats, I just want to add that wide pleats don't neccesarily equalt to a "casual" looking kilt.

I don't know where the idea started, but remember that up until the middle of the ninteenth century, all kilts had only about 4 yards of cloth, and were usually pleated to stripe. This meant that sometimes you just had a few very wide pleats. We have one in the museum from c. 1800 that has exactly 6 box pleats in the back, about 2.5" wide each. I'm making one right now for a client that only has 6 box pleats in the back, because the sett of his tartan is 13.5".

Look at the picture on the main page of my kilt site. That's the MacQuarrie tartan from the Cockburn collection (c. 1815). It has an 11" sett, and when I made that one for myself I only got seven pleats out of it. No big deal.

Even with smaller setts I only get as much as a dozen (maybe fifteen at the most) box pleats. I know that ya'll here are talking about knife pleats, which is fine -- but with box pleats expecially you don't want pleats too small, because that doesn't give much depth to the pleat itself.

To be sure, fewer, wider pleats is a much different look than many narrow pleats. But I just wanted to put forth my opinion that it is unfair to say the former is a "casual" look only. If it is made well, there is no reason such a kilt could not be worn formally, with the proper accessories. As I have said before on this forum, a good kilt should be versitile -- wearable for both casual and formal occasions.

I've worn box pleated kilts with wide pleats to many a formal event and never raised an eyebrow. Got married in one, in fact!

Aye,
Matt

[beerbecue]

I'm after any more hints & tips even after reading Barb's book. I am pleating 1/2" military pleats with a shallow reduction of about 1/6". Whenever I try sewing them down I get more waves than in the North Sea. Done the pulling tight & hold bit, but especially as it's military pleats, anything other than perfect looks a mess. Any help appreciated.
Phil

Try pinning in a few places in the sewn-down part of the pleat, especially at the ends, where the size of the pleat is determined. I run my pins along the pleat, instead of perpendicular. After you get a bit sewn down, remove the pin, and keep going. You don't have to hold it down too tightly, but enough that the fabric doesn't move as you are sewing.....

I have also taken to pinning a couple of inches below the fell, to hold the dimensions of the pleat below the sewn part, to make sure that it starts out the correct width when I iron.... I also sew several bastings before ironing..... just to hold the pleats down VERY well....

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to sew all summer, all my stuff is still in storage......

Gotta get a place to live soon.......

[Barb T]

Hi Phil

When I stitch pleats, I actually use quite a few pins. It doesn't say that in my book, because my co-author, Elsie, has conniptions whenever she sees people pinning pleats. When she apprenticed in Glasgow in the 40s, her instructors beat into her that it cost time (and therefore money) to pin pleats, so she learned to put a pin at the top and a pin at the bottom and hold tight in the middle.

Me, I find that I actually pleat _faster_ if I take a few seconds to pin the pleat about roughly every 2 inches at a stripe (largely because I don't have to go back and take stuff out). And I even am anal enough to _measure_ to make sure that a centered stripe is actually centered after I pin it at 4 or 5 places along the pleat. Even on a kilt with a long fell, I do 5-6 pleats an hour, which is plenty fast enough for me, so I just don't worry about it. This is one place I don't agree with Elsie, particularly for beginners.

So, in the revision of the book, I am going to have a box about pinning pleats, but I left it out of the first edition because Elsie was adamant about not having it in.

Try that, and see how it works. It's _particularly_ important for kilts pleated to the stripe.

Also, I think 1/2" pleats at the hips are pretty tiny. Most traditional kilts have pleats that are more like 3/4" or more at the hips. Even if you don't use all your tartan (if, for example, it has a really small sett), I think your kilt will look better.

Any other questions, just ask!!

Barb

[Barb T]

Forgot to say something about Matt's post on pleat width. I understand his point about the original kilts having wider pleats and less material. But, in the modern world, what we think of as "traditional" has narrower pleats and more material. So, if you have a kilt that _doesn't_ look like that, it doesn't look like what _we_ now think of a kilt as looking like.

Barb

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Right, Barb, understood. However, I just wanted to make the point that this distinction between 4-yards being casual and 8-yard being formal is a false one. A good, *hand tailored* four yard kilt can be worn to any formal occasion just as an 8-yard. It all depends on the accessories.
M

[Phil Wright]

Phew! I feel a lot better now I can pin! I also found that as I was trying to pull the pinned ends were fine but the cloth 'moved' as I stitched ending up with a bulge at the middle. I tried tacking along the pleat edges to hold the tartan together which seemed to work a bit better too.(Probably also not officially recommended.)
Thanks for the advice.
Phil