Pleated to the line

[MacSimoin]

Matt is, of course, spot on with his input in this thread. You just gotta love and respect the wealth of knowledge he and others like him dispense so freely for those of us here who aren't as well-educated (myself included) on the historical aspects of kilts and kilt-wearing.

...some tartans just yell out to be pleated to the stripe.

I'm in full agreement with this but I'll even go as far as to say Ham's statement applies to most tartans. It's just my opinion that pleating to stripe looks better and gives a kilt even more 'character'.

[CameronTaylor]

Serious agreement, once I saw how cool a stripe looked and the way the colors flash when it swings (I think it was Barb T.s Antarctica or some such ) I was hooked. That's how my X Marks will be done.


CT - yelling, screaming, striping.

[Yaish]

One of the State Universities here, University of California, Riverside (UCR) had their own tartan developed and kilts made for their pipe band.

I believe it is pleated to the stripe, because when viewed from the front you see this across the apron
http://www.pipeband.ucr.edu/tartan.html


When viewed from behind, the kilt is a much more gold tone, except for this flash of rich, royal blue jumping out with every step.

Honestly, I think it is the most attractive kilt/tartan I have ever personally seen, and I do hope to get one myself, though I have no ties to the school at all.


EDIT: To add more pictures.

http://www.lindaclifford.com/UCRPipeBand.html

http://www.pipeband.ucr.edu/

[Moosehead]

Being an ex-mil type, I much prefer pleated to the stripe. I doubt, of any tartan kilt I'll own, that I'll ever pleat to sett.

[Pleater]

Having bought a bolt of cloth I have managed to devise three different kilts so far by pleating to the black, the lavender or the purple stripe, and as the repeat is 8 inches I can make a fourth one pleated to the sett. I will still have lots of cloth left - maybe I'll store it for future making.

The pleated to stripe kilts are already well under weigh, and they do look entirely different from the back. I will not complete them until the weather cools as they are quite heavy and trying to work on them in this heat would probably exhaust me. I decided to sew the edges of the pleats so as to get the stripe at the same distance from a sharp fold, once that is done I can then sew the waist to whatever size I need - probably sewing it by hand for ease of future adjustments.

I think the kilts are quite sucessful as they already look good with the pleats pinned into place.

I can't see how the literacy of a kilt maker would affect the way a kilt is made. I might be a bit biased as my father's mother was a country woman who could run a household and the orchard, poultry yard, dairy and all the rest, clothe a man from top to toe except for making his boots - but she could mend them once he had them - and she was illiterate until my father went to school and she sat with him and learned what lessons he'd done that day once he got home. She was coached so she could write her name when she married at 21 - rather than put an X in the church register, but that was all she could do.

Just because she could not read nor write her letters didn't mean she could not count - though she had no concept of money for a long time. However she picked it up quickly enough as the shilling had a dozen pennies and there were a score of shillings to the pound, both familiar to her from the counting of eggs and the 'yarn tan tethra' of the shepherds.

[MacSimoin]

...I believe it is pleated to the stripe, because when viewed from the front...

Yes, those UCR kilts are definitely pleated to stripe and that's one beautiful tartan.

[kiltimabar]

It appears that when you pleat to the line (stripe), there are several choices (depending on how complex the tartan is) of which colors to hide, and which to display. When giving such instructions to kiltmakers, I suppose you would have to be very specific as to which stripe you wanted to have it pleated to and how much of each pleat would show. Sounds like that might be even more complicated than pleating to the set.

[Hamish]

It appears that when you pleat to the line (stripe), there are several choices (depending on how complex the tartan is) of which colors to hide, and which to display. When giving such instructions to kiltmakers, I suppose you would have to be very specific as to which stripe you wanted to have it pleated to and how much of each pleat would show. Sounds like that might be even more complicated than pleating to the set.

You are right. When ordering my 'Bruce of Kinnaird' from Geoffrey (Tailor), the instructions as to which stripe I wanted were indicated to the kiltmaker by reference to the thread count. There was no other way as I had very firm thoughts as to how it HAD to be done!

[efer]

Having seen many examples of pleating to the line/stripe on this forum added one to the top of my "must have" kilt list a weathered Ferguson pleated to stripe...must have