Quote Originally Posted by cloves View Post
I'm hoping more kilt makers chime in on this. MacWage, make sure you post pics of your handiwork.
Sorry for joining this discussion a bit late, but I was mentioning to Matt Newsome (who'll be making a box-pleat kilt for me out of the latest batch of XMTS tartan cloth) that I was sure what stripe to pleat to, & I thought you might be interested in his reply -

"If you want my personal reccomendation, if I were making the kilt for myself, I'd pleat to alternate lines (effectively meaning pleat to the sett in a box pleat).

Here's why. I've noticed that F&K's cloth really doesn't want to hold a sharp pleat. Try as I may, I can get nothing better than a soft pleat to hold in it. Other kiltmakers have expressed the same concerns. I had hoped that this would be better in their 16 oz cloth, but I just completed a kilt in this new weight, and I'm having the same issue.

A soft pleat is not neccesarily a bad thing. In fact, Bob Martin reccomends it in his All About Your Kilt. However, in a four yard box pleated kilt, a soft pleat looks much better if the pleats are on the wider side.

So, if you pleat to alternate stripes, this allows you to increase the pleat width by 50%. This will give you much nicer hanging pleats, in my opinion."

I figure Matt's the expert, so I said, "Make it sew!"
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