Phillabeg, Feilidh-beag, or "Little Kilt"

[MacWage]

These may be of some help:
http://www.kilts-n-stuff.com/Kilts/phillabegs.html
(there was a link to how to foldit somewhere on the site)

Article by Matt Newsome in "The Scottish Banner"
September 2006 -- The Evolution of the Kilt -- Part II: The Feilidh-beag
(link on his own site is not yet active)

The problem is, like for the belted plaid/great kilt, there are no contemporary accounts as to how it was put together. Only pictures survive as all but a VERY few (of the early tailored type) were converted into something else or disposed of when they got old.
I'd contact/call Matt Newsome at the Scottish Tartan Museum in Franklin, North Carolina and get advise from him on the matter. Few know more on the topic that he does.

[Woodsheal]

Consider also this article. The thinking is, that since the belted plaid ("great kilt") most likely had a drawstring to facilitate its use, so too did the earliest philabegs have a drawstring in the waist:

http://www.tartansauthority.com/Web/...eltedplaid.asp

Here's an image from ca. 1780 which shows no careful pleating as we now know it, and apparently not much of an overlap of the "aprons":

http://www.marariley.net/celtic/images/stockings.JPG