Pleat sizing

[beerbecue]

Thanks for the tip!

I thought about pinning the end a little past the fell, so I could try to pull a nice taper to the waist.

Doing it all by holding it with my hand, it took nearly three hours to get set up and sew just those three pleats!!

Holding the buttonhole reinforcement in place was a small challenge in itself!!

Thanks for the help Barb, I'll keep you posted...

[Barb T]

Troy

Don't worry - you'll get faster at it!

Barb

[akaussie]

Ok Barb, when you say that a pleat should be between 3/4 to an inch in width are you talking just the under par of the pleat or the whole pleat? If you are talking about just the under pleat, how wide should the exposed bit be. I am asking thais as the first kilt i plan to attempt will be of plai material as tartan is very rare and expensive here in the land of oz, so if i spend about $40 on plain coloured material and make a mess of things I havent lost much. Got a price on tartan fabricm, its about $25 per metre.
Cheers Andrew

[Canuck]

Ok Barb, when you say that a pleat should be between 3/4 to an inch in width are you talking just the under par of the pleat or the whole pleat? If you are talking about just the under pleat, how wide should the exposed bit be. I am asking thais as the first kilt i plan to attempt will be of plai material as tartan is very rare and expensive here in the land of oz, so if i spend about $40 on plain coloured material and make a mess of things I havent lost much. Got a price on tartan fabricm, its about $25 per metre.
Cheers Andrew

The face of the pleat is 3/4" underneath is a full sett between 5-6" so if you were to make it out of solid colour. measure 3/4" draw a line in chalk then move over to the right measure 5-6" draw a line then measure 3/4" and line then your 5-6" till you have the number of pleats you want. Measure down from the top of the waist almost a third of the length of your kilt or the rise, mark that on the right and left of the 3/4" face. You taper up from that mark. Also mark the width of your waistband. Put in double and a reverse pleat as per instructions for a tartan kilt at the apron. and away you go.
Robert

[Barb T]

Hi Andrew

I agree pretty much with what Robert said except for a couple little things:

-I just mark the center of the pleat with one chalk line (less marks on the tartan). Then, when I'm pleating, I just center the chalk line, measure for the pleat, and stitch.

-A 5-6" sett is rather a small sett for tartan. Remember that pleat depth (that's the hidden part - the distance that your fingers would go into a pleat if you stuck your fingers in) will be roughly half the size of the sett. So, a 5" sett will have pleats about 2.5" deep. A 6" sett will have pleats about 3" deep. If you're making a self-color kilt (plain color), you can choose how deep to make the pleats. Just decide how deep you want the pleats to be, double that, and put your pleat marks that far apart.

Cheers,

Barb

[Canuck]

Hey Barb, I don't mark the tartan kilts with chalk, I agree it's too hard to get out and the tartan usually gives a good guide. It's the solid colour kilts that I mark. (I actually use talc powder in a rotary marker and then when I'm done I brush it out with a lint brush.)
I do use pins though, and a good steam iron with a bit of vinegar in the water. I'm not sure about you but I found setting the pleats with an iron first helps sewing the pleats.
You have great tips, thanks for the advice, every bit helps.
cheers
Robert

[Barb T]

Hi Robert

The method for stitching pleats that I learned is very different from the one that I think you're using and that has been described in the Folkwear pattern, various places on the web, and in Ann Stewart's article in Threads magazine years ago. The method I use is the one that my teacher and co-author Elsie learned when she apprenticed at Thomas Gordon's of Glasgow back in 1947, and it's the one that's detailed in my book.

Basically, I fold and stitch only one pleat at a time, rather than folding and pinning or basting all the pleats first. If you start with all the pleats folded and basted first, there's a whole bunch of material that you have to bunch up and hold when you stitch each pleat. If you fold and stitch one pleat at a time, on the other hand, you have no fabric in the way as you stitch, and you can move your hand along the entire length of the pleat as you stitch. All of the rest of the fabric is out of the way, and it's much easier to stitch accurate, perfectly-tapered pleats. If it would help, I'll dredge up a pic from my book and post it, so you can see what I mean. Actually, my avatar has a pic of pleat-stitching by this method, although the pic is pretty small and may be hard to see.

On the chalk issue - as long as you use wax-free tailor's chalk, the marks come out pretty easily by either slapping the fabric or rubbing it lightly with a wad of tartan scraps.

Cheers!

Barb

[Barb T]

Hi folks

Here's the diagram from my book that shows what I meant in the previous e-mail by folding and stitching one pleat before the next one is folded. If it doesn't make sense, let me know.

Cheers,

Barb

[beerbecue]

Re: chalk lines

Barb is right, chalk lines are very easy to remove. So easy in fact, that as I move the fabric during sewing, some of the chalk lines become pretty faint.

Then a quick brushing and gone!

[Barb T]

Yuppo - if I'm going to be carrying a kilt around to work on when I'm traveling, I take the time to run a short line of basting stitches along the chalk lines so that I don't lose them.

Barb