First Trad Kilt: an ongoing thread

[Southern Breeze]

I've just finished and believe me,tartan is ten times the aggravation of solid fabric.
Hang in there,it's well worth the effort.

[millar]

So Alan, How is the the project coming? I have just started my first kilt and this thread has been a great help.

[Alan H]

After being buried at work for about 3 weeks (I was pretty scarce here on X Marks, too) I finally got back to the practice kilt last night.

Barb, you are right about preparing one pleat at a time. If you baste more than one (two, actually) you wind up with all this material underneath that just gets in the way and slows you down.

OK, so here's my new technique which has allowed me to get EIGHT PLEATS DONE IN ONE NIGHT. I've now done ten of the 24 pleats

I lay the whole pile of fabric , accordion-folded like Barb suggests, on a flat, smooth table. I failed miserabely at crossing my legs and holding the material in place, I tried and tried and just couldn't ever get anything even close to straight.....anyway, back to my new technique... I pull the next pleat in, and line up the bottom of the fell. I'm using a ruler to get the amount of reveal just right. When I"ve got it right, in go two pins at right angles to hold it in place.

Then I move up to the waistband and pull everything fairly snug and even. Again, I use a ruler to get the top of the taper just right. When it's right, in go two pins at right angles to hold it in place.

I then work my way down the taper, straightening as best I may, and dropping in two or three more pins, each perpendicular to the pleat. I then baste the whole thing from the fell to the waistband, about 3 largish, but not too large, stitches per inch.

Once that's done I can stitch it with the proper colored thread, going carefully. I seem to be averaging 5-6 stitches per inch, with more like ten at the top of the waistband and ten in the last inch at the bottom of the fell.

My stripes are by no means perfect, but the point is that I'm actually making progress now, after getting nowhere for 3-4 nights. The stripes/pleats are not ruler-straight, but they're oodles better than all the ones I ripped out and as Steve from Freedom Kilts suggested, they're getting better as I move along. I can guess that when I get to the end I'll want to go back to the beginning and do the first 4-5 over again.

OK, so to do 8 pleats has taken me about 6 hours. I think I'm going to speed up, though. Note that at any given time you will have two pleats basted....the one you're currently sewing down, and the "next" one. The "next" one is basted down because you need to set up that pleat/taper so that you sew the "current" one down to the material from the "next" one that's folded under the waistband.

Did that make sense?

[Southern Breeze]

Okay, here's a few teasers for everyone wanting pics. My sister has my camera so I used my scanner. Regular pics will follow.
The kilt is the Bruce Tartan,8 yards,13 oz. It's the first traditional kilt I've made and has it's share of goofs. Here is a few views of the top of the back.

[Alan H]

[QUOTE=Southern Breeze]Okay, here's a few teasers for everyone wanting pics. My sister has my camera so I used my scanner. Regular pics will follow.
The kilt is the Bruce Tartan,8 yards,13 oz. It's the first traditional kilt I've made and has it's share of goofs. [/QUOTE}

Hey, I don't see any disasters here. I'd be pleased with those results! Congratulations!

[bubba]

Looks pretty good to me.

[haukehaien]

Looks nice! It's at least as good as the first (and only!) one I've made.

Although I plan to start another one in the new year.

[millar]

Southern Breeze: Wow that looks great. I don't see any problems with it either. Great job.

Alan : Thanks for the update. Glad to hear there is progress. I am trying a machine sewn 4 yarder with an unidentified plaid. My progress too has been slow and as this is my first foray to using the machine my lines are less than perfect and have had to rip out several times already. I just don't have the dexterity in my hands anymore to hand sew. Thanks again for the thread.

[Southern Breeze]

Thanks for the comments so far. The largest goof is in the front. After I finished and tried it on, I found that I had made the aprons about 2 inches too wide!
The one I started first,twill, is wearable but not presentable in public.

[Alan H]

All right, three more hours this morning saw me through three more pleats and a re-do of the first two.. I'm getting it down to abut 40-45 minutes per pleat. My newest ones are so much better than the first two pleats I did that I finally decided were acceptable that I went back and ripped out the first two and re-did them yet AGAIN. This makes five times I've sewn and ripped out the first two pleats. However, now I have a *system* and progress is (relatively speaking) fast and furious. Thirteen pleats down, eleven to go!

While I'm getting better as I go along, I'm just starting to think that I might buy 3 yards of Holyrood poly-viscose and stitch up a kilt pleated to the sett in PV before I dive into the be-all, end all of the X Marks tartan. I want a Holyrood kilt anyway, I might as well use it for practice. We'll see.