Some Assembly Allowed....SWK

[Perldog007]

Well I now own one of each of the Stillwater Kilts. My "heavyweight" is the leatherneck box pleater. Despite the moniker it was very pleasant on a 90 degree high humidity day.

The Standard is Hunting Macleod. Despite the concerns of one forum member there is no danger of mistaking me for panache, unless he spends the next year at Roscoe's ordering extra butter and syrup on his chix and waffles.

The ones I want to discuss here are the thrifty and economy models. They both came without the fell stitched down. Both are very light and comfortable for summer wear.

I thought I was pretty secure in my wardrobe choices, until the Mrs. remarked that pleated ladies skirts were made like those two kilts, with no stitched down to the fell.

Both my thrifty and economy now are stitched down to the fell. I did not do a perfect job, happily the kilts weren't perfect to start with.

Used Machine stitching solely in the thrifty, all but one pleat on the economy were machine stitched the last one was giving me trouble, so I tried my hand at old school sewing. Need a little more practice there. Since I mostly wear these to work and special occasions (Wal Mart, the pub) I should get away with it clean.

Pics to come.....

[Perldog007]

Well here is the thing. I like the way both kilts look on the hangar, but I altered the taper of both in sewing down the fell. Now they fit like my U.K., which is to say girlie tight around the buttocks.

So now I get to rip the stitches out....

Really must get a copy of AOK....


If anybody with more skill than me has managed to pull this off, would love to hear about it.

--

Doug

[pipesndrumsnun]

Good luck to you!

[mddock58]

They were not designed to be sewn down. In order to do that, you would need to order the kilt at the size of your hips, and then remove the waistband and literally remake it. (taper the fell, and stitch it down)

Is that what you really want to do?

[Perldog007]

They were not designed to be sewn down. In order to do that, you would need to order the kilt at the size of your hips, and then remove the waistband and literally remake it. (taper the fell, and stitch it down)

Is that what you really want to do?

No I would prolly snag one of those remnants from F&K and make one from scratch first.

I saw a post by fluter saying he stitched the one in his avatar. At first guess I would imagine a short "fell" and perhaps some other wizardry. It was an interesting exercise though. But since the lightbulb is already invented I think I will try to skip the Edison routine (10,000+ failures)

I may try taking out the stitches half way up, and seeing how they fit. If good will just lock them down there, if not, all the way out they come.

[adam]

But since the lightbulb is already invented I think I will try to skip the Edison routine (10,000+ failures)

But they weren't failures...

[fluter]

They were not designed to be sewn down. In order to do that, you would need to order the kilt at the size of your hips, and then remove the waistband and literally remake it.

We tried to make it a little simpler than that. My SWK economy appeared to be tailored in more or less "tubular" fashion at the waist size. The pleats then open to accommodate the hips. My self-image is pretty secure, else I would not be here. However I will grudgingly admit that iit looks a tiny bit skirt-like.

My Wallace tartan, on a 6-inch sett, was very nicely pleated to stripe with a reveal of about 1-1/8 or 1-1/4 inch. My goal was to taper this out by about half an inch per pleat, where possible; as I needed 6 or 7 inches of taper. I hoped that the fell would then sit nice and flat; and that, being fitted to my hips, the kilt would better "stay put" at the high-rise waist line.

Here's the result:

The original seams are at the waistband, and mid-belt near the first horizontal yellow stripe.

My new fell comes down to the second horizontal yellow line, just below the hip buckle. I was able to taper out sufficiently while keeping the reveal in the dark black area. The main limitation is the anchor of the hip buckle, which restricts a couple of pleats to the original reveal. The bottom of the belt loops affect the results to a lesser extent.

Before (left) and after:

I'm not sure how much you can tell from the photos. In both cases, alas! the kilt had been a bit sat-on. While my hand tailoring is not perfect, it feels better and I believe it looks a bit better. Conventional wisdom says that more taper is needed around the side of the hips than across the back. It might have looked better if I had been able to keep the center more straight, but the buckle gets in the way on the right side.

In sum, it's not easy to get the hip-room I require within the limitations. I may need to touch up a couple of areas to make the taper more gradual. And the SWK Economy is a bargain, with or without modification.

I also have an SWK Thrifty Kilt. Like our colleague, I now have one of each model. My Irish National Thrifty model, though, is so nicely pleated to the sett ...
that I almost hate to mess with it! However without the belt loops and buckles, one may be able to do it more gracefully, perhaps working some taper into the broad green background area. Then I my try making belt loops out of some flashes, hmmm...

Later I'll show you a mod to an un-sewn-down Sport Kilt, a less successful venture.

[Perldog007]

Excellent pics and explanation Ken! My two mistakes were not adding a taper and stitching down too far.

The economy wears so well in warm weather that I really wanted to modify one or two. I shall regroup armed with this new knowledge and succeed on the next run.

After we finish and post up Mactrailer Park hunting kilt ver 4.0 alpha. My neighbor wanted a kilt as soon as he saw my U.K., but he is watching the pennies with a wife enduring expensive and serious medical treatments.

What could a decent kiltsman do except make this man a kilt? Pics soon....

Seriously appreciate the explanation, I think my economy Wallace should recover nicely!

[hospitaller]

I have a case of the 'tubular body syndrome', where due to my weight issue (220 pounds of chocolate stashed in my gut), my waist and my hips are the same size.

That said, the economy SWK fits like a glove right off the bat (my first one at least).

Another way I can see where we could 'fake' the taper would be by simply using say the first hole in both waist straps, and then second hole in the hip strap.

It has worked for my type of body (tube, no taper between waist and hip), in that it feels tapered and it also looks that way (you know, narrower on top than at the bottom of the fell)

[sydnie7]

I have a case of the 'tubular body syndrome', where due to my weight issue (220 pounds of chocolate stashed in my gut), my waist and my hips are the same size. [snip]

The challenge dealing with this shape is that it typically isn't a straight up-and-down tube. Stand sideways and your navel is likely sticking out far in one direction while the "glutes" are sticking out far in the other direction. Same measurement, but offset front-to-rear.

I've read threads discussing the fitment of kilts to these cases and it basically involves measuring your hips using an imaginary (or ginned-up) plumb line dropped from the navel. This allows the front apron to hang smoothly rather than be pulled inward. Something I'll be attempting on my next kilt project, but probably not possible when altering an existing garment.

Good luck with your efforts! I'm hoping to gift him with an SWK Leatherneck Standard this holiday season (shhhh, it's a secret!) but am studying the posts about hip strap/removal of.