Help with pleating to the sett

**Kilted Taper** · 27th November 06, 01:37 PM

Though I am not done with the Anderson I started, I decided to get the US Bicent. kilt started. I am hoping to pleat to the sett, but I am having some problems.

From the center back stripe to the last pleat after the front apron I have 13 pleats. If I understand correctly, I will need to have 12 more pleats after (towards under apron). Barb's book says the last pleat should mirror the first pleat. However, when I do the 12 additional pleats it doesn't end where it should. If I do 11 it does.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

**RockyR** · 27th November 06, 02:39 PM

you may have skipped 1 pleat somewhere...

**Alan H** · 27th November 06, 08:18 PM

I'm having the same issue on my current kilt...Maybe I should re-count.

**turpin** · 27th November 06, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by Kilted Taper

Though I am not done with the Anderson I started, I decided to get the US Bicent. kilt started. I am hoping to pleat to the sett, but I am having some problems.

From the center back stripe to the last pleat after the front apron I have 13 pleats. If I understand correctly, I will need to have 12 more pleats after (towards under apron). Barb's book says the last pleat should mirror the first pleat. However, when I do the 12 additional pleats it doesn't end where it should. If I do 11 it does.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you sure you mean center back stripe or pleat? Barb's book says from the center back pleat you should have the same number of pleats to the right as to the left of it (page 63). Or is it that your center pleat is centered on a stripe? With 12 to the left do you end up too far along in the sett, or short?

**Kilted Taper** · 30th November 06, 08:24 AM

Originally Posted by Alan H

I'm having the same issue on my current kilt...Maybe I should re-count.

Alan-

Any luck figuring it out? I swear I've counted 20 times and still ending in the wrong spot.

**Pleater** · 30th November 06, 09:24 AM

You need to look at the pattern - thats how I work, and I tend to look for easy options. Capitals are for emphasis only.<G>

To start from the basic concept, when pleating to the set you are recreating the set in the pleats, and I try to arrange a full number of sets, and an odd number if possible so there is a CENTRE BACK SET (and also a centre front one, but that can most easily be be fudged at the edges of the apron).

Now if your PLEATED SET has an odd number of visible folds then there will be a fold in the centre of each one and you will have a centre back FOLD. If the set has been pleated with an even number of folds then there will be two folds equally spaced each side of the centre back, and an equal number of pleats counting outwards from the middle of the space.

I regard making a kilt as an Engineering project - so when it looks right, it is right.

Sorry if any errors have crept in, I am using the cheap keyboard which came with the new computer as the nice racing model I had hoped to be able to use can not talk to it (stupid machine) So I am now trying to use a tiddly little one which rattles like whatsit, and also is black with white letters rather than vice versa, plus I have put my reading glasses somewhere safe!!! Ergnomics, nill, agronomics rules!!

**Kilted Taper** · 1st December 06, 09:36 AM

I *think* I may have figured it out. Broke down last night and just decided to fold and pin the pleats to get a good visual of what was going on. Turns out, my pleat marks were WAY off. When I did it to what looked right to me I ended where I believe I should be. I've attached a picture to hopefully help illustrate. But I've got 12 pleats either side of the center pleat so that was good, but do they begin and end as they should?

**chasem** · 1st December 06, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by Kilted Taper

I'm not certain on this, as I've not made a kilt pleated to the sett, but I'm thinking the problem was probably in the pleat you have marked as your center-back stripe. It's not at a pivot point in the tartan. Which means (at least in my mind, and I think I'm thinking through it right) that moving 12 pleats either way is going to end up with a different pleat for the 12th pleat on either side.

In other words, it won't be symmetrical, because the center-back pleat isn't a point of the tartan that is symmetrical.

I'm not feeling like I'm speaking clearly.

In your image you have a set of three white lines in the red marked as the center back. The problem is that to the right, you have another set of three white lines, and on the left, you have the line where the red block meets the thick black line.

So, since you have asymmetry from that point, it won't be symmetrical at the apron edges.

From eyeing your image, it looks like you have 24 pleats, but 25 black marks there. It looks like the outside white lines (in the blue blocks) are the beginning of either apron, am I seeing it right?

**Kilted Taper** · 1st December 06, 11:56 AM

Was that in English??? Kidding...I actually thought I had figured it out, but now you have me guessing. The stripe chosen for the center back was the red one between the 2 sets of three white you mentioned. HOWEVER, when I tried to keep that stripe in the center of the middle pleat, it just wasn't happening. The red stripe ends up as the edge of pleat 13 and overlaps the red on 14. Does that make sense?

There are 25 folds in the fabric which is why I am saying there are 25 pleats. They are of varying sizes since I wasn't going for erfection, just a rough estimate of what I would get as an end product.

**Kilted Taper** · 5th December 06, 12:38 PM

I think I may be putting the US Bicentennial off to the side for now and work on the County Cavan Irish tartan I have. That seems a little easier. May have to do the US to the stripe, wich is a little dissapointing.