Sorry to weigh in so late on this. I've had a couple of nutty days here.

I have a couple of suggestions:

1) Regardless of what you do with the measurements, be sure that you put only one buckle on the apron edge. For someone with a bit of a bulge in the front, a second buckle typically pulls the apron tight under the belly, which doesn't look good.

2) Consider wearing your sporran with hangers from the belt, rather than with a traditional sporran strap (which tends to emphasize the contour of the belly and doesn't allow the apron to hand smoothly down from the top band).

3) Wear your kilt high enough - don't succumb to the temptation of letting it ride below your belly, which will give you the "pouchy" look.

4) If you're doing a test-run kilt, try adding 1" to the hips measurement. Make the waist and hips measurement in the apron identical (23 and 23), and make the pleats 23 at the waist and 24 at the hips. That will snug the kilt into the small of your back a little and give you a little extra room across the front below your belly. Should work fine.

5) Don't put lots of itty bitty pleats into your kilt. Particularly for a big guy, it starts to look like something other than a kilt. For someone your size, I wouldn't make the pleats any less than about 7/8" at the hips.

Barb