Judgement Call

[WClarkB]

Gentle kilted Persons:
I have had some experience sewing (tents, coats, major lacerations, etc)
and I was wondering how much experience should I invest in kilt making before I attempt to make one out of authentic tartan. There is a generally unsympathetic non-celt spousal unit in the wings and I am trying to keep expenses down but I will pony up the $$ if it gets me a nice kilt

walt

[McMurdo]

I've never tried to sew a kilt, if I sew I bleed, however I would say given what I've seen that you should perhaps start with whats known as an X-Kilt in a solid fabric. Then pick up a copy of The Art of Kiltmaking by Barb Tewksbury who is a member of the forum, and goes by the name Barb T. read the book and maybe make another X-Kilt or two until you're comfortable, when you feel ready then go out and get some tartan, a good place to go for tartan would be the Fraser Kirkbright remnants page.

[Finn]

I echo McMurdo.

[OFCJAX]

What he said.

[ChattanCat]

Hi Walt,
I made my first kilt out of some cheap 100% wool material. You want to use wool because it molds well and holds a crease after pressing. My first kilt now rests on the top shelf of my closet, probably never to be worn again but a great learning experience. The second kilt will be a little easier, but not much.




You will most likely make mistakes. I am still not perfect after 21 kilts.
Good luck!

[Alan H]

What McMurdo said.

Get some solid or camouflage twill, cheap stuff and make an X-Kilt. download instructions can be found, above in this forum. Now you have the *very* basic idea and you even have a kilt you can wear hiking or working in the yard.

Buy Barbs book. Read it.

Now buy some inexpensive wool or wool blend tartan off of ebay or Fraser and Kirkbright. Hack your way through a first kilt. Maybe you could do two like this?

At that point, buy the GOOD stuff, and go to it.

[Wompet]

Having machine-sewn four kilts (three prior to the X-Kilt manual), and handsewn five more (with another in the works) - go with McMurdo's and Alan H's advice. For your first attempt find some inexpensive material and have at it. Then work your way up to tartan.

[Carolina Kiltman]

And, if you haven't already learned it, patience (and a lot of ripping out and re-sewing) can be substituted for a goodly amount of expertise. Good advice precedes this post.

And also, good luck

[Pleater]

If you can find some wool material the learning curve might be less steep as it is more forgiving than cotton.

It is the wrong time of the year here, in the Northern hemisphere's Winter, to be working with black fabric - though there are a few bright days, and almost everyone needs a good black kilt. Some tweed like patterned fabric might be a good start as I find that a pattern helps with lining everything up. As long as the weaving is even, of course.

If you are going to be using really expensive materials for your tartan kilt I'd recommend having made five kilts you are pleased with before tackling that one.

You should by then have mastered the division of the fabric into pleats and know if there are any pleats which require 'tweaking' to get them to lie right - for instance I have to lift the inner fold of the under apron pleats in order for them to lie flat and not roll outwards.

You should have done enough hours of sewing for it to have lost its novelty and for the whole process to have become familiar, so you might actually enjoy the making of what should be a very special kilt.

Fewer than five might be possible if you have a real feel for the making of a kilt - by the time you have done three you might be feeling that there is little more you can improve on. This might be false optimism, but you can always take out the sewing and start again.

Anne the Pleater

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I know it sounds tempting to make your first kilt with cheap material, but if you are serious about it, my reccomendation is to start with good quality tartan wool kilt cloth. It will be more of an investment, but it will be worth it.

First, the kilt will only ever look as good as the cloth, no matter your skill. A kilt made by an expert kiltmaker from cheap cloth will still look like a cheap kilt. Whereas a kilt made from good quality cloth by someone with even half-way decent skills will still look pretty darned good.

Plus, my experience is that the heavy weight wools are actually much easier to work with than the less expensive lighter weights. Which means it will be easier for you to suceed in your first kilt making effort.

So if you invest a litle in good heavy weight kilt cloth, you'll have an easier time of it, and you'll have a better looking kilt. Using inferior cloth may just lead to frustration your first time out.