X-Kilt: Sew Your Own, manual available for download

[Paul Henry]

the waist measurement is divided into two ( very roughly at least ) to make the front and back of the kilt. The underapron is the same width as half of the waist. so in actual fact you will have 3 sections to a kilt, but the total length is about one and a half times the waist measurement.
It's a lot more complicated than that, which instructions are you using? if you tell us , I'm sure that some of us can help you through.
and good luck with making it.

[Alan H]

urrghhh. . . so i decided i was going to make a kilt for my husband, cause you have to admit that guys are hot in kilts, well i guess they are to me. . . but anyways he gave me his measurements as 42 waist and 23 drop, so with the directions that i found on some site i started working on it to night. . . the guide said to take the waist measurment and divide it in to 3 sections, so 42inches goes down to 3 sections of 14 inch panels, and the pleats i did 3 inches forward then 2 inches back till i had 14 pleats . . . but when i started measuring i decided to double the aprons so its thicker knowing how my husband is going to treat it. . . so i have it all pinned and started sewing it and ran in to problems with my brand new sewing machine, i don't think i have it threaded right or whatever. . . so i gave up on that for the night but when my curiosity got the better of me and i decided to hold it up to see how it would look and fall it doesn't look like its big enough and i think with the extra inches i added it actually comes out to about 48 or 50 inches long but it doesn't look like it's gonna fit him. . . . any ideas if you can understand my babbling. . . and if anyone wants to come help me with my stupid sewing machine i'll have a nice cold pint for ya. Alba gu brath

OK, Squeaky, listen up-....

A kilt is made up of three sections.

1. the under-apron
2. the over-apron
3. the pleats

The thing to do when making a kilt is focus on the guys rump measurement, not his waist measurement. If totally desperate, you can guesstimate that his rump will be about 8 inches bigger around than his waist, but that only works for a medium-trim gentleman, and there are a LOT of exceptions to that. Better would be to get out a tape measure and actually measure your man....how big around the rumpus, right at "privates" level, is your guy?

OK, so when you have that measurement, write it down, it's the most important measurement when making a kilt. Now, take that number and divide it in half. That will be his "half-rump". Write that down.

If he's POSITIVE that his actual waist measurement is 42 inches, and mind you, just because he wears pants with a 42 inch waist doesn't mean his waist is actually 42 inches, so you probably should measure him... then you'll need the half-waist measurement. figure that out and write it down.

OK, over-apron first.

At the waistband (top) the over-apron is going to be as wide as the half-waist measurement. Eight inches down from the top (more or less) the over apron is going to be as wide as the half-rump measurement. At the bottom of the kilt (did you hem it? ....down there) the over-apron will be about three to four inches wider than the half-waist measurement...though that will be evenly distributed between the two sides, right? That's called A-shaping.

OK, so make your mans over-apron about that big, like I described. This is important to do right, because a lot of how the kilt looks is determined by getting good, accurate measurements on the over-apron.

Now make a mongo-big (four to five inches deep) pleat on the left side of the over-apron. That's the transition into the pleated part of the kilt.

OK, the pleated part of the kilt is going to be as wide.... the same measurement as your mans half-rumpus measurement, plus an inch. Yeah, add an extra inch in there. OK so fold up your pleats and stitch 'em down or iron 'em in, or pin them in, whatever until the pleated part covers the distance of your mans rumpus plus an inch.

Now, the under-apron.

there should be on move "backwards-pleat"..or "reverse pleat" that faces the very last "regular pleat" that serves as the transition to the under apron. Make it 3-4-5 inches deep. Then make the under apron as wide as your mans half-rumpus, though if you run out of material and you can only make it 3/4 the width, that's OK. If you need to make it 1/2 the width, then you might get to see furry bits when the wind blows or when he sits down...and so might every other woman on Oahu, so there's limits here.

OK, does that help?

[Alan H]

Mind, you, you're going to have to taper the pleats, aren't you? I mean, he's smaller around the waist than he is around his rumpus, so you're going to have to make each pleat a little bit smaller at the waist than it is at the rumpus level...just like the over-apron is smaller at the waist than it is at the rumpus.

How much smaller?

that depends on how many pleats you have, and what the difference is between his half-rumpus measurement and his half-waist.

Take the difference between his half-rumpus and half-waist, and divide that by the number of pleats. That's' how much smaller each pleat needs to be at the waist, than it is at the rumpus.

[Alan H]

Mind you, all of the above does NOT apply to the X-Kilt, which is what this thread is generally about....

[Nigel]

Amazing manual and creation. My mother-in-law (who is good at sewing, unlike I) is going to make one up for me after the holidays, at which point I'll definitely post it.

[ScottyT]

There is a disturbing lack of pistures in this thread...

Alan, truly you are a wizard. A million thanks!

[Alan H]

Blow-by-blow pictorial of X-Kilt creation may be found here:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/c...x.html?t=25353

Note that many of the pictures from the FHCAG's thread have been (will be) incorporated into the 2nd edition of the manual.

[pdcorlis]

Second edition manual - YUM!

[topher]

Blow-by-blow pictorial of X-Kilt creation may be found here:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/c...x.html?t=25353

Note that many of the pictures from the FHCAG's thread have been (will be) incorporated into the 2nd edition of the manual.

It looks like that URL is broken (have to be careful when you copy and paste URLs around here, they're often shown abbreviated). I think the correct one is:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=25353

or

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/c...x.html?t=25353

[The F-H.C.A.G.]

Thanks topher!

Be well,