I have exactly 2 yards of double-width Munro Hunting tartan that I'm finally getting around into turning into a kilt. I am a little bit over the hip width where it's recommended to go with 2 1/2 yards, but 2 yards was all that was available and this being a special piece of fabric (Harris Tweed) I decided to buy it anyway. Needless to say, I am going to be using pretty much every inch of this fabric and even so I'll be skimping on the apron edge facings. When I realized how little maneuvering room I had, I switched gears and came at the pleats from a purely mathematical standpoint, figuring that pleating to nothing gave me my best shot to find a workable size and number of pleats.

By happy coincidence, though, I determined that 8 pleats, 3 1/16" wide, with a distance of 8" (give or take 1/8" here and there due to the ABAC sett), will result in the kilt being pleated to the sett and a gap of a little over 1/2" between pleats on the inside, which seems reasonable. The even number of pleats means the sett won't be centered in the back, but I can live with that.

However, that option does force me to skimp on both deep pleats. I'll still be within the minimums recommended in Barb and Matt's supplement to The Art of Kiltmaking, but I'm wondering if I should keep crunching numbers to see if I can gain free up a few extra inches for the deep pleats... as far as I can tell, the tradeoff --regardless of the number and width of pleats-- would be a wider gap between the pleats on the inside. Is there a rule of thumb for the maximum gap one should consider between the pleats inside? Either a hard figure, or proportional to the pleat width?

Thanks as always for any tips & insight - I've said it elsewhere online when I see people looking for information about kiltmaking, but it doesn't get said here often enough: the helpfulness and generosity of the people on this subforum is really amazing.

-Andy