I've written a lot of stuff in the thread entitled "4 or 8 yards" and I just wanted to get this up in its own thread to make a point.

It's as if there was this religion that says that the True Kilt must have 8 yards of material, and anything that has less than 8 yards is somehow "less". A Tank, meaning the Really Excellent and Wonderful Ultimate Kilt will have eight yards of material. Anything less, unless perhaps you're getting a box-pleat kilt, is sort of "not quite as good". Illustration: I was talking to my "other" Clan (Hall family...Border family) West Coast coordinators wife, about my Macnaughton 4-yard kilt and she made a face. I mentioned that yes, this one was pretty light and I wasn't entirely happy with it, but that I was considering making a wool 6-yard kilt. She continued to make a face, and said something about "real kilts always have eight yards". I didn't get into an argument with her, it wasn't the time nor the place, but she's absolutely wrong. Now, her husband is a pretty big guy, so HIS kilt might have eight yards of material in it, but not ALL high-quality "tank" kilts have eight yards oif tartan in them.

I've crunched the numbers many times and now I've made two kilts, with another one started, yesterday afternoon. The truth is that with a sett of 4.5-7 inches, a waistline from 30-40 inches, and 24-28 pleats you can't use up eight yards of material making a kilt unless you deliberately add in more cloth by pleating double setts. There's no actual reason to pleat double setts in medium-to-heavyweight cloth, it's just wasting material. The honest truth is that 6 yards of material is plenty for a kilt that has lots of pleats.

OK...do you want 40 pleats in your kilt? Fine, then you can do it, pay for it, then cut out a third of those four yards of wool that you CRAM into those pleats so that the kilt will actually lie up against the small of your back without bulging out like a tumor. Yeah, you can DO it, but what's the point? The swing is not going to be any different. It's not going to LOOK better. It's a waste.

Who needs a REAL 8+ -yards of material?

If your hip/butt measurement is, say 54 inches or greater, then you can use up 8 yards i fyour tartan has a big sett. My butt measurement is 46-47 and the kilt I made, which has 26 pleats and a 6.5 inch sett was just shy of 7 yards. Take a look.....



Now, look at that picture and tell me that no...no no no 26 pleats just isn't ENOUGH.

If the sett is greater than eight inches and you want lots and lots of pleats, and your hip measurement is greater than 54 inches then you will be able to use up more than eight yards. Big guys need more pleats, no question about it. By my calculations, someone who makes a kilt that has 34 pleats (this is a bloody lot of pleats) , has a 54 inch hip measurement, and a sett that's 8 inches will use up.... nine and half yards of tartan!!!! Do you have any idea how much that thing is going to weigh? Imagine if it was made out of 16 ounce cloth! Think about how unbalanced it's going to be! It'll be four times heavier in the back than it is in the front.

BIG setts and LOTS of pleats eat up tartan. You big guys with tartans that have really big setts, and need a whole lot of pleats can talk about eight and nine yard kilts. The rest of us, the guys with hip measurements from 30-mid-40 inches, with setts in the 6-inch range, and wanting less than 30 pleats (more than 20, less than 30 is just fine, and looks good) should be talking about 6 yard kilts. Not 8 yards....6 yard kilts. Our knife-pleated "Tanks" are going to be 6, maybe 7 yard kilts....not 8 yards. Not only that but in a 6 yard you don't have to cut a third of the tartan out from the middle of your back!

A guy with a hip measurement of 46 (this is my size and I'm a pretty big guy) using a tartan with a 6 inch sett and wanting 26 pleats will use up 6.3 yards of material....just about exactly what went into the kilt you're looking at in that picture up there.

Ease off on the religion of "8 yard tanks". 8 yards of material is for really big guys with tartans that have really big setts. For medium and small sized guys, and tartans with 5-6 inch setts, you're gonna use 6 yards of material for that knife-pleated kilt that has plenty of pleats. You want to use the word "tank" to describe your "killer kilt"? Great...I like it, and use it, too. It's a good term. But let's break the rhetoric and mindset of how it's GOTTA BE 8 yards.