how to pleat this tartan?

**DWFII** · 12th June 08, 05:34 PM

Hope I'm posting this in an appropriate place...

I am considering this tartan for a tank. I am wondering how it can be pleated...not to the sett. Can someone tell me...or better show me by cutting and pasting?

I am also wondering if military box pleating would be appropriate? There are two variations depicted the first from Lochcarron the second from Marton. The Lochcarron is more complete (larger view) but the Marton is probably the one I will choose.

**Ayin McFye** · 13th June 08, 07:57 AM

There are usually at least 3 ways to pleat a kilt, sometimes more.
For the best advice I would read this article by M.A.C. Newsome

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/2005/1...ipe-makes.html

I think that I would preferably pleat that fabric to the light green stripe. I think it would stand out a lot and when the kilt swished, it would have the dark undertones. Just my own personal opinion though. For the best results, pleat the kilt to every possible combination (Dark green with red stripe, Dark green with the white stripes, light green, and to the Sett) and see which one you prefer the most.

You should pleat the fabric all of those different ways and take a picture each time (obviously don't sew anything yet) and post the various combinations on here so that we can all see.

Good luck!

**DWFII** · 13th June 08, 09:25 AM

Originally Posted by Ayin McFye

There are usually at least 3 ways to pleat a kilt, sometimes more.
For the best advice I would read this article by M.A.C. Newsome

http://kiltmaker.blogspot.com/2005/1...ipe-makes.html

I think that I would preferably pleat that fabric to the light green stripe. I think it would stand out a lot and when the kilt swished, it would have the dark undertones. Just my own personal opinion though. For the best results, pleat the kilt to every possible combination (Dark green with red stripe, Dark green with the white stripes, light green, and to the Sett) and see which one you prefer the most.

You should pleat the fabric all of those different ways and take a picture each time (obviously don't sew anything yet) and post the various combinations on here so that we can all see.

Good luck!

Thank you...unfortunately I am not a kiltmaker...just seeking a kiltmaker's advice. I Have tried to use the magic of a computer to envision how this tartan would look pleated but I don't know if I have it anywhere near correct.

I also don't know where to begin to visualize a military box pleat.???

In this one (above) I have "pleated" to the red stripe on the right and to the light green on the left...the center is the sett.

In this one (above) I have pleated to the red and white .

So far that's all I have come up with. But acknowledging that this is a rather subdued tartan I am not sure I am impressed with any of these. Maybe the red and white.

**ThreadBbdr** · 13th June 08, 09:37 AM

I like the red or the red/white. While the light green would be striking when the pleats flash, it's too horizontal for my tastes when the kilt is at rest. The red only does have a nice vertical element, but the white just appears from nowhere, but in more than one repeat, it probably wouldn't look as obvious. The red and white has the best verticals visually but might be harder to taper than the red only - it looks like there's not much 'wiggle room'.

Of course, I'm a total newbie at this.

**Galb** · 13th June 08, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by DWFII

In this one (above) I have pleated to the red and white .

So far that's all I have come up with. But acknowledging that this is a rather subdued tartan I am not sure I am impressed with any of these. Maybe the red and white.

First off, I love the Scottish National Tartan. It is rather close to my family tartan, however, it has more to it. It was also my first kilt I bought at a Highland Games in Dunedin, Florida. It is a Gold Bros. Kilt, but it was my first step into the kilted world, and thus has a special place in my closet.

That being said, and not trying to highjack this thread, I love the way you have pleated this to the red/white. I would totally go this route if it was me. That is awesome looking and I expect to see pics of the finished product.

**Ayin McFye** · 13th June 08, 10:54 AM

I am going to change my vote and I am going to agree with Galb and ThreadBbdr. After seeing the red/white stripe, I would definitely go this route. I think it would look rather sharp.

**Clockwork John** · 13th June 08, 02:25 PM

I think that it looks great pleated to the red and white stripe.

**DWFII** · 13th June 08, 02:27 PM

I tend to agree that the double red is really good looking but it's not really to a double red, it's to a double white and I'm not sure if it can even be done so it will come out looking like it does above. That's why I posted in this topic--hoping to get some feedback from kiltmakers. Thats also why I asked about military box pleats...thinking that the box pleat could be made just wide enough to have a red line on each edge.

See...I don't know...I don't know what's possible and what's not.

**Alan H** · 13th June 08, 06:22 PM

You could certainly pleat this the way you have laid it out. You have to do some reverse thinking, though.

If you knife- pleat to stripe...any stripe or any repeating part of the tartan, you will get one pleat per sett repeat. That's pretty intuitive.

Now, what you need to do is decide how wide the pleat reveal will have to be to give you the stripes you want. Let's pretend, just to make this easy....that it's going to take you exactly a one-inch reveal to show just the stripe alignment that you want. How are you going to figure this out? Answer: by taking the cloth, laying it out on the table and actually practice-pleating it. I found that a thick piece of glass was handy for this. I pleated about ten pleats and then laid the glass on top of it. This squished down the fabric reasonably flat and was clear, of course, so i could see the resulting pattern.

Twiddle and adjust and look again....and again....and again. It took me a month of twiddling to decide how I was going to pleat my X-Marks tartan.

OK, so let's say you've pleated and twiddled and decided that you needed a pleat reveal of exactly one inch to show the stripes that you want. So that would mean that 23 pleats would cover a distance of 23 inches, right?

What's your half-butt measurement? Eh???? OK so take a tape measure and measure the circumference of your body around the biggest part of your rump. Barb's book politely refers to this as your "hip" measurement. Now divide that number in half. for example, my rump measurement is 48 inches. Half of that is 24 inches. Therefore it will take 24 pleats, with one-inch reveals to cover me rumpus in pleats. In fact, actually you will likely make 25 pleats, but read Barbs book to understand why.

24 pleats, eh? OK, so that means I'll need 24 setts to make 24 pleats, won't I? Now the question becomes, "do I have enough cloth?"...or perhaps..."how much cloth do I need?"

Mind you, this is an APPROXIMATION, it will changed depending on the sett size. I will do this for my own measurements...waist 42, butt 48 assuming a 6 inch sett

Over-apron fringe: 6 inches (one sett)
Over-apron: half my hip measurement, or 24 inches (4 setts)
the under-apron pleat: 9 - 12 inches (one and a half setts to 2 setts)
pleats, with a 1-inch reveal: 24 setts x 6 inches per sett = 144 inches
the reverse pleat: 12 inches or two setts
under-apron: half my hip measurement, or 24 inches again

TOTAL: 222 inches. That's 6.17 yards......BTW I ordered 3 METERS of X-Marks tartan from the first weaving, and my X-Marks kilt has 25 pleats in it. Basically I just described my X-Marks kilt, right there.

So for this kilt, 'round MY bum, with pleats with a 1-inch reveal, I will be making a "6 yard kilt".

Did you follow all that?

What if I'd decided I HAD to have a 3/4 inch reveal?

Then my 24-inch half-rump measurement would be covered by 32 pleats, which means 32 setts.
32 pleats x 6 inches/sett = 192 inches.

all the rest of the measurements I went through above would be the same. Therefore this bit of fabric that I'd need to make this kilt would be 48 inches longer than the previous example. That's 270 inches, or 7.5 yards....close enough to the magical "eight yard kilt".

I hope that was helpful.

Regarding your question about whether this could be made into a military box pleat, centered around the double stripe...Answer: yes. However, if you want to have a military box pleat made with a really wide "folded over pleat" it won't look all that great IN MY OPINION.. Everything depends on the size of the sett and the size of the reveal you want to show the stripes that appeal to you.

**DWFII** · 14th June 08, 03:30 PM

Alan,

Thank you for taking the time and energy to explain all that. I confess that I feel dull in the face of it, however. Not being a kiltmaker, not even having begun to visualize myself making a kilt, I am afraid much of it went over my head.

Forgive me if I ask...what's the bottom line? Do you think the tartan can be pleated to the double white (as above) in a 16 ounce 8 yard kilt? Could it be done as a knife pleat and look good? Could it be done as a military box pleat and look good? Which would be better/easier?

PS I am not going to attempt this, myself. I just want to know with some certainty when I instruct the maker that it is do-able and that I am not asking for the moon.