So, after playing with my spreadsheet some more I went ahead ordered a yard of medium weight solid black tweed (80% wool, 20% poly) from Fashion Fabrics Club.
With a solid black underapron I'll get regular sized facings, generous deep pleats, and 7 full sett pleats to the green stripe at 3-1/2" wide, with a scant 1/8" overlap behind.
I noticed that too, Sydnie (about those sites being more or less identical except for the company names) - for some reason, though, I found the tweed I ordered on the Fashion Fabrics Club site but not Denver Fabrics.
I got the apron edge sewn down last night, but I wasn't crazy about how wide that first pleat looked once I saw it taking shape. This morning it occurred to me to revisit my original plan - and I realized with the extra tartan freed up by the solid underapron, I'll be able to do 9 pleats, with a pleat distance of 3/4 of a sett and no gap or overlap; with this tartan it will basically be pleated to the sett, centered on the same stripe as the apron. The sett doesn't repeat exactly seamlessly in the pleats, but each pleat will be centered on the pattern blocks in order; BACABACAB. And the pleat width definitely looks better proportionally to me.
Last edited by usonian; 10th November 12 at 08:00 AM.
Reason: typo
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