Need advice on double wide set

[Barb T]

Hi Barb,

You'll find it at this link. Have not decided if to pleat to set or to stripe, though I'm leaning towards stripe.

http://cid-72e00564d4d68ac5.skydrive...TartanWset.JPG

Thanks in advance!

Well, that is a bugbear of a tartan, no doubt. I can't see how you can effectively cheat the pleats on this one - there just aren't enough elements that repeat twice a sett (as there are in the Black Watch). If you decide to pleat to the sett, you might try experimenting with a look that approximates the tartan but doesn't try to repeat it. There are so darn many stripes anyway that no one is going to notice that the tartan isn't quite perfect on the back.

You don't have a lot of options for pleating to the stripe. In order to solve the problem with the huge sett, you need two pleats per sett, and there aren't any candidate identical stripes that appear twice per sett and are more or less evenly spaced.** You could choose to pleat to the white stripe in the wide reds, but you'd have pleats that alternate dramatically in depth. If you're not happy with that, I'd be tempted to pin up a pleating with the white stripe between the wide greens alternating with one of the white stripes in the wide reds. You won't know whether it might look attractive until you try it, but that seems to me to be your best option. The only other choice is the one that Steve suggested - alternate two very different stripes across the back.

Be sure to share pics of what you decide to do!

And this is a wonderful tartan for potential tartan designers to look at - this is an example of what you do NOT want to design!!

**For those of you who aren't sure why two identical stripes per sett are key to pleating such a tartan, here's an example of a tartan with a sett as big as the MacDougall example (this one is about 16"). Tartan is the Weathered Stewart Old Sett. The full sett spans nearly the entire apron (from the middle of one big gray undercheck to the middle of the second big gray undercheck).



Fortunately, the narrow red stripe in the dark brown repeats twice per sett, pretty evenly spaced. This allows two pleats per sett of approximately equal depth and a reasonable number of pleats total. This tartan would not pleat at all to the sett.