Interfacing material for a PV material

[Barb T]

The canvas or broadcloth is used to carry the load across the pleats at the back of the kilt. This relieves the pleats from the stress of the belt buckles.
The interfacing is for supporting the pleats in the vertical direction. It simply keeps the pleats straight in the vertical direction.

Wallace

Gaak - major edit - I inadvertently deleted a line out of the following before I originally posted it, and, leaving out that line changed the whole meaning. Sorry!! It's fixed now.

When canvas is put into a kilt properly, it is fan-folded. So, it really doesn't do anything to keep strain off the pleats. But a trad kilt _should_ have a stabilizer, a 1 1/4" strip of broadcloth (not canvas) that is stitched securely but invisibly at the waistline of the pleats and under the canvas. This keeps the buckles and straps from putting stress on the pleat stitching. So, what I had _meant_ to say the first time is that the _canvas_ doesn't keep the pleats from stretching.

Think of it like the inside of a hard hat. The harness grabs your head and the helmet just goes along for the ride. In the kilt, you're actually cinching the canvas around you waist and the kilt just goes along for the ride.

This is true if you're thinking about the stabilizer but not if you're thinking about the canvas.

As far as the pleats below the stabilizer, there's little to keep the pleats from being pulled at the hips (although the steeking helps a little), which is one of the reason why, if you have a hip buckle, it shouldn't be pulled tight. And, as Matt and I have said many times on this forum, a man's kilt doesn't need a hip buckle.

Cheers,

B