Quote Originally Posted by Canuck View Post
Just a thought regarding the puckering you experienced before taking on this task.
It is my understanding that it is the under apron that should be snugged up and generally this is what holds the kilt up. The over apron is just buckled up with no tension. The over tightening of the over apron is what causes the kilt to pucker in most cases.


Hi Canuck,

I'm probably using the term puckering in the wrong way, so let me describe the problem or behavior I was getting rid of with the hair canvas.

When I sit down in a kilt, the apron folds horizontally in several places; it has to.

When I stand back up, the canvas has a bunch of horizontal folds in it that require the apron to be smoothed over and tugged downward a little.

With the hair canvas behind it, two things happen to the apron; this happens with the wool kilt as well as canvas. First the folds are not as sharp and they are mostly down at the bend of the hips with the hair canvas; it's stiffness is arranged vertically and forms itself around my belly. Next, when I stand back up, all the folds just pop back out because of the hair canvas and the apron pretty much smoothes itself out; the wool kilt did that on it's own to some degree, but was helped along with the hair canvas. All of this also applied to bending forward.

I was calling the horizontal folds and the crumpling up of the apron at the lower belly, "puckering."

However, there was another issue with this kilt and the placement of the right hand side buckle. I think that may have been a mistake in the construction of this specific kilt; however, I think the apron was also designed to work in a different way than I would like. I have fixed that and all is well, but it seems like the front apron was not tapered into an "A" shape on the right hand side. The design appears to rely on the right hand of the under apron to define where the edge of the top apron would be on a regular kilt; it had an apron with a narrow bottom design in other words. That means that to make the bottom of the apron centered the kilt had to be way off center on the top. There was enough facing to add the taper I wanted.

That does not fix the way the reverse double pleat behaves, but it, at least, makes the apron more like a regular kilt apron, and covers both of my legs when I sit down.

I hope that makes sense. I'm not a kilt maker nor a tailor, but I went by, in part, what I have learned about interfacing in suit jackets and other clothing for this kilt alteration.

And at this point I am trying to work out the details of the lining I want to put over the hair canvas. There's nothing that I can do about the double pleat at the underapron edge; it just wants to be open or spread apart, and I think that is how it is designed to be. I can live with it.