How much tartan for a kilt?

[The Wizard of BC]

Even if you plan on having 30 pleats in your kilt it will not use up all 8 yards so my suggestion is the find the center of the fabric and start marking for your pleats outward from there. 15 in each direction. Then add the amount for your deep and reverse pleats, then the aprons, them the facings.

Cut off the excess.

BTW 30 pleats will mean each pleat is .766 wide at the hip and .666 at the waist.

Plunking those numbers into the formula from above means you need:

38" for the outer apron, its facings, and the deep pleat +
183.75" for the pleats +
42" for the inner apron, its facings, and the reverse pleat =
263.75" or 7.32 yards.

[CameronTaylor]

The tartan is a real tartan, ....

Steve wants to know what flavor it is, by name.
The rest of us are curious too.


CT -

[Thunderbolt]

Steve wants to know what flavor it is, by name.
The rest of us are curious too.


CT -

Oh, sorry. It's Maclaine. The part I'm working with was the outer few layers that was in bad shape, snags, holes and such.

Anyway, I've got a bunch of it. We (the Clan) heard of a mill that was getting rid of it and they had several rolls of it. I got the smallest one and it was still a lot.

Speaking of which...This is double width, and the other selvage has the threads still attached, I'm assuming from were the shuttle simply went up to the next section. Can I just snip these off? Or should I not use the selvage altogether?

[Moosedog]

If you have one good edge (selvedge,) then one option is to do as Barb suggests and just cut a piece off that side for your first attempt. You can always hem and use the not-so-good side later.

Moosedog

[Barb T]

So, if I cut a length of 8yds, when I go to find the center back, how will I know?

T.

Fold the tartan in half, and the center back is the middle of your length of tartan. Start counting pleats from the center mark toward the apron.

For 45" hips, and a split of 22/23, you'd have 30 pleats if you made each pleat about 3/4" at the hips. You don't want them any smaller than that at the hips, and bigger would be OK, too. I'd say, maybe 27 would be good. So, if you count more than 14 pleats from the center of the tartan toward the apron, you can just choose one of the pleats that isn't right at the half way mark to be the center back of your kilt. That just means that you'll have a little left over at the end of the whole length.

Barb

[ChattanCat]

Fold the tartan in half, and the center back is the middle of your length of tartan. Start counting pleats from the center mark toward the apron.

For 45" hips, and a split of 22/23, you'd have 30 pleats if you made each pleat about 3/4" at the hips. You don't want them any smaller than that at the hips, and bigger would be OK, too. I'd say, maybe 27 would be good. So, if you count more than 14 pleats from the center of the tartan toward the apron, you can just choose one of the pleats that isn't right at the half way mark to be the center back of your kilt. That just means that you'll have a little left over at the end of the whole length.

Barb

What Barb says. I bow to the expert kilt maker.

[Pleater]

If 8 yards turns out to be too much, then you might consider just folding the excess back under the aprons to beef them up a bit as the fabric is rather on the light side.

You can still shape the folded edge, just sew it as you would a dart and then fold it on the centre line so the excess forms a facing.