Black Watch to the stripe: checking my math

[sydnie7]

Art of Kiltmaking in hand, I've approached a length of Black Watch determined to wrestle it into a knife-pleat-to-stripe. OK, it's two lengths (3 and 2 yards respectively, double-width) which means one extra join, but I have more than enough material for end user Bob, aka Bigdad1.

My current math:

Waist 40, hips 45 (with a minor bay window, considering jeans size 34)

Waist split 21.5 apron, 18.5 pleats

Hips split 22.5 apron, 22.5 pleats

Planning 21 pleats with 7/8 reveal at waist (fudging two of them larger for final 18.5) and 1-1/16th reveal at the hips (fudging two of them larger for final 22.5). Need for "fudge" assumes I am capable of stitiching to the 1/16th!

Fabric is on the lighter side, with 4-inch sett if I'm measuring right (that's a 6-inch gauge for comparison):


Various XMTS threads have made me think I should create deeper pleats to somewhat compensate for lighter fabric.

Here are two roughly pinned samples with just the 7/8 waist reveal (not pinned to the taper, sorry). Both show a pleat depth of about 3 inches created by pleating to every other stripe.

First I thought I would "pleat to the nothing" or, more accurately, to the almost invisible black stripes next to the green:


But I tried also pleating to the black that's within the green, and think that I like it better:


I tried pleating to the central black stripe in the blue, but it is nearly invisible when working up close to the fabric. It shows up pretty clearly in these photos, but I would go [even more] blind trying to work to it! And I don't think it would turn out looking much different from the first option shown.

Comments, criticisms, suggestions, corrections to my math all welcome!

[Barb T]

This actually isn't the Black Watch. It's a Black Watch look-alike. The Black Watch is an ABAC tartan, with alternating blue blocks being different (one is like the tartan shown in the pic and the alternating blue block as a pair of double black lines). The tartan shown in the pic is an ABAB tartan, with identical blue blocks. So, yes, the sett is actually 4". If it were real Black Watch, the sett would actually be 8".

As far as the pleating goes, the first option that you show (to the "nothing") won't actually come out "to the no stripe" because the black stripe is narrower than your pleat. So it looks like half the pleat will be blue and half black. It's not particularly traditional, but, if you go this route, be sure to center the color boundary. I think it would be better pleated to the double black line or to the black line in green. Kind of depends on which you like the look of better!

The splits look fine.

Keep us posted with pics!

[sydnie7]

Thanks, Barb. I thought I recalled you describing BW as asymmetrical, glad to know it is this fabric and not my memory that is faulty this time. Considering the other things seller neglected to mention (one big flaw at selvedge and a running flaw near fold), it's no surprise that their ID was flawed as well! But I can dodge the nasty bits and still come out with an almost-BW kilt for my honey -- and I bet very few others will notice the difference!

I'm going to pleat to the black-with-green, unless Bob says different when I show him the samples this evening. As mentioned the colors are darker in person than in these pics.

Progress will be slow but I'll post as I go. Thanks again for checking my math!

[Barb T]

Nope - BW is not asymmetrical; it just has a big sett because it's ABAC rather than ABAB. If it were asymmetrical, it would be something like ABCDABCD.

So, both your BW look-alike and the real BW are symmetrical.

[sydnie7]

OK, I'll admit to being lost in the semantics of symmetricallity and go back to simple stitchery!

[Barb T]

An asymmetric tartan is one that doesn't have a mirror image repeat. The Black Watch is an ABACABAC type tartan, and the "C" block is a pivot (mirror) block. You can see below that the repeat is exactly the same going left or right from the "C". That makes it symmetrical. Neither A nor B are pivots, but that doesn't make the tartan asymmetrical. As long as there is at least one pivot, the tartan is symmetrical.

ABA C ABA C ABA C ABA C

A tartan that is an ABCABCABC type tartan has no pivots:

A BC A BC A BC
or
AB C AB C AB C
or
A B CA B CA B CA

Neither the A nor the B nor the C is a pivot, because the sett isn't the same going each way from the single letter in the examples above.

[Huoliuhi]

bump and lurk

[turpin]

Think of symmetrical setts as a palindrome. spelled the same in both directions

[English Bloke]

Crikey!! Being a bit of a pseudo muso I thought reading the dots could be complicated.

Kind of makes me wonder if you could turn tartan setts into music.