Machine manufacture?

[RockyR]

SNIP... As Wally says, if you stitched the pleats on the outside, the stitching would show. By stitching them by hand, you can use a nearly invisible edge stitch. But *can* they be sewn by machine? Yes - Rocky at USA Kilts stitches his pleats from the inside (so that the stitches don't show) because he doesn't like doing hand work. Is it easy? No - he is really really good a it, and it is essentially a manual job with a machine doing the actual stitching. It's really really tricky to get the pleats in exactly the right place, with the right taper, _and_ line up the stripes. Even Rocky admits that he takes out about every 6th pleat (if I remember correctly). So, we're not talking about automating by machine.

The thing Barb forgot to mention is that we still have to pin the pleats together and THEN sew each one (inside out) and if there is any "stair" effect on the back (meaning the horizontal stripes don't match up perfectly), then we have to tear it out and re-do that pleat. Yes, it happens roughly every 6 - 8 or so pleats since we're sewing them 'blind' and inside out. Not fun wasting 10 minutes of work, but it has to be perfect.

There are other things that Barb brings up (like the buckles) that CAN be done invisibly by machine (sewing the strap upsidedown onto the back side of the fringe and 'return' and then folding the return behind the kilt), BUT it is still a HUMAN using the machine, guiding the material. It's not an automated process. We're still involved in every step and the machine just makes the needle move.


**side note: I have GREAT respect for what Barb does by hand. I'm just no-where NEAR that patient and nowhere NEAR as good at hand sewing, so I had to figure out how to do it the same (sort of) way on a machine, using my hands.