Still wanting to kreate-a-kilt

[toadinakilt]

Man, UK just totally redesigned their website, and it's sweet. Just looking at all those different kilts is making me drool...but as a college kid, I don't have money!

I got Barb's book...man, it's way above my skills as a seamster. Does anybody have any idea when Jimmy is going to get the eastcoastkilts site going?

I'm really wanting to make my own UK/AK/PK/FK type casual...I would run out and grab 6 or 7 yards of twill or denim, but I wouldn't have any clue where to start cutting or pleating or sewing or measuring or anything like that. \

Any bright ideas for adapting Barb's wonderful traditional hand-sewn instructions to make something non-trad with a machine? Or should I hoard away 25% of my next few workstudy checks and just buy cloth, and start experimenting with my own designs? Or just hoard money and buy a UK...

[Pleater]

It is difficult to advise when my own first attempts at making clothes were so far back - about 50 years - but - kilts really ARE fairly easy and you can usually remove the stitches and redo a join with no ill effects. Using a material which is made up of fairly thick threads, like most denim, means that your sewing thread can be pulled through the gaps between threads and not distort the weave, or worse, break threads as you sew.

As I have made several kilts which are going to need remaking several times as I get thinner - (good ol' Dr. Atkins should see to that) their design is simplified.

For fabrics which contain some polyester or other man made fibre you can press in the pleats and they are fairly permanent. For the 100 percent cotton ones I started out by calculating the pleat size and spacing and sewing in the creases.

I then sewed the waist. Just two inches straight, to join the fold to one layer of the fabric. I then pinned the hem so the kilt was flared the right amount at the top, and pressed the top half of the kilt. This is creating the supression between the wip and waist, but by pressing, not sewing. I pressed both sides, which seems to make it sharper. I then sew along the waist, not making it too permanent with backing etc, so it can be undone and made smaller.

Now some of my more casual kilts I have pressed the whole thing into a flared shape, but more traditional ones I have only pressed the top half of the pleat in the flare, then repinned the hem to slightly over the hip measurement, and pressed the lower pleats parallel.

A lot of the 'tailoring' of a kilt is in the pressing.

If you are going to use all cotton material then you might find that sewing the back crease of each pleat for maybe 6 inches up from the hem will keep it in place. Cotton tends to lose the crease easily.

The only thing to do is practise, if you want to make kilts for yourself.

Maybe there will soon be a video/dvd kilt making sew along. Seeing things done can be far more helpful than even the best written descriptions.

If you have some old poly cotton sheets you can rip and join them into a 24inch wide strip and practise - use pins and a long ruler to mark out the pleat measurements, then use safety pins to keep the folds in place to press the pleats and hold them for trying on.

I have a heavy 100percent cotton kilt that used to be a Habitat sheet, and a Hodden colour polyester cotton 7 yard kilt which is sheeting fabric. They have turned out so well, (and they don't have 'sheet' printed on them) - that despite them starting off being just experimental I finished them off carefully and now wear them regularly.

Poly cotton sheeting is rather light - I sewed a cotton tape into the hem to make it heavier.