crease resistant poly cotton twill

[gilmore]

I have come across some poly cotton twill that is advertised as having a crease resistant finish, a good thing in cotton and cotton blend kilts. However, I am concerned that the crease resistance might make it less likely to hold a pleat well. Does anyone have experience with cloth like this?

[Pleater]

The only thing to do would be to try pressing some - there 'should' be a temperature where the polyester starts to soften and it can be pressed into a fold, but it all depends on what the polyester is and how it has been treated - the required temperature might be too high, the cloth might spoil, your iron might not have an accurate enough control on it for the job - too many variables.

If it is a really good looking fabric then I'd say get it anyway, press it gently and then sew the edges of the pleats to make sure.

The edge stitching can be an attactive feature of the pleating, if done to show, or just about invisible if you want it hidden.

[Scott Gilmore]

It is remarkable what can be done with natural fabrics such as cotton these days. You mentioned a blend, and it could be that the weaver used polyester to give the woven fabric its wrinkle resistant quality. If so, if you're careful, you should be able to press an edge to the pleats, but you may want to avoiding starch. If the fabric obtained its wash and wear wrinkle-free features by treating with enzymes (an expensive, but very effective method), starch will degrade these qualities.

[cacunn]

The black x-kilt that I am wearing as I type is made of wrinkle resistant poly-cotton blend. The first X-kilt I made was of cotton twill and wrinkled so bad that I tried the poly-cotton blend. I sewed the pleads in with a stitch about 1/16 of an inch from the edge and really like the results. I doubt that it will hold a plead by its self, however I do like the looks of the sewn pleats and I pull it out of the dryer (slightly damp) and smooth the pleats and aprons. In about an hour I'm ready to go. I'm going to make a couple more in the poly-cotton.