Kilt making problems.
So, I've bought and studied the book, got some really nice woollen material and I'm ready to go.
First problem. The tartan is Dress Erskine which is black and white. The dress making chalk I have is white, result, I can't mark up the kilt.
Drat!
Fortunately, dress making chalk comes in different colours so now I have to go and buy a different colour. Moral, check your colours first!
Okay, now, on page 56 of the Kiltmaker's Bible, er, sorry, that's "The Art of kiltmaking", it says, and I quote "From the waistline chalk mark, draw a smoothly-curving chalk line connecting the waist and hip marks at the right apron edge,continue the chalk line down to the bottom of the kilt in a subtly-flaring A-line shape."
Second problem. I couldn't draw a subtly-flaring free-hand line on and with anything even if my life depended on it, let alone four times.
However, one of the other things I do is boat-building and I don't know if you've every noticed this, but straight lines on a boat hull are few and far between. So people like me have to resort to other means for drawing curved lines.
For this kilt I used a piece of heavy card longer than the length of the kilt, copied the measurements from the kilt to the card for the apron and using a flexible wooden batten and some fine nails I fixed the batten so that it curved through the required points on the card. then, with a very sharp knife, I cut the card along the line of the batten to give me the required curve. I can now draw all four of my apron curves on the material with confidence by using the cut card as a template.
I wonder what other things I'm going to discover as I progress through making this kilt...
Tetley
The Traveller
What a wonderful world it is that has girls in it. - Lazarus Long
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