friends don't let friends make corduroy kilts...

[vorpallemur]

I'm working on a kilt. It's a reverse Kingussie pleated x-ish kilt. I took what I learned from following Alan H's wonderful x-kilt guide (and the rev-K supplement, by whoever that's by. I forget, sorry!) and what I've learned from making a number. Then I've added the things that I think a useful practical garment requires: internal pockets for wallet, keys, llama, cell phone, and whatever else I need to carry around, plus the things that make it more comfortable to wear, at least for me, which include a lower rise, and a waistband that's higher in the back (and thus, lots of finishing hemming...). For perfectly sensible reasons, I decided I'd make this out of corduroy. I like cordoury. I like the corduroy kilts I've seen. For less sensible reasons, I'm using scarlet (it actually said "cinnamon" on the bolt, but the matching thread is labeled scarlet) 21 wale to the inch, 100% cotton fabric, that's only 41" wide. In my defense, I was going to use a much wider waled navy blue, part poly 60" wide fabric, but they didn't have enough. The cute sales girl convinced me that scarlet stuff would be okay -- I was worried it was too light weight, but she said she'd made a skirt out of a different color of it, and it was fine. Piecing the stuff together was a pain.

One of the fun things about corduroy is that the cords run the length of the fabric. So if you did the usual kilt-making thing of taking a length of fabric, and folding pleats into it, the cords would run horizontal. That would look odd, even by my own rather loose standards of couture. So you got to hack the fabric into kilt-length bits, and then sew the shorter bits together, selvage to selvage, to produce a wide enough piece to be useful. (The sensible way to do this, by the way, is to put a join in the middle of the center box bleat (or only box pleat, if you're doing Rev-k). then you can work on the right and left hand pieces of the kilt seperately. Needless to say, this is not what I did.) I joined 7 pieces of 41" wide fabric together, pressed the seams flat, top stitched the selvages down, and then took a month break. It turns out that if you have a thread that's an exact match for your fabric, and you're using nice cotton fabric, you will go blind trying to pick out a bad seam. This is encouragement not to make mistakes, let me tell you!
(Well, I did start figuring out the pleating several times, but I got confused, and kept having to start over. thus, the month break.) So, the other day, i worked out what I could do with my 287 inches of cordury (besides make a handy red carpet.) That's just an inch short of 24'. That's a long piece of fabric to deal with, it turns out. I had a fit of lazyness, and decided that I'd do the center box pleat, 9 uniform knife pleats on each side, with a 1.5" reveal, plus generous first and last pleats and aprons. A bit of math reveals that the pleats will thus be 4.5" deep, and overlap lots.

that's it pleated. The left hand side pleats are sewn down, the right ones are just folded.
I've done quite a bit more, but I'm tired, and don't feel like dealing with pics tonight. I should be able to get most of the rest done tomorrow (everything except the hem, as I'll need help to mark it. and maybe the waistband.) and I'll post pictures.

[Bugbear]

I like pin wale corduroy.

[Aldisimo]

Congratulations on sticking with it to the end! You'll be rewarded for your perseverance.

[JolyStNicholas]

Well done laddie, I like the color. Post up the photos when finished!

[KFCarter]

Hats off to you, it's going to be a great kilt. It makes my head hurt just reading about the process! Congratulations on your skill and persistence and keep the pics coming.

[Panache]

My lovely Flame-Haired Celtic Amazon Goddess' first X-Kilt was out of corduroy.

She wrote a blow-by-blow thread with many photos here

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/c...x.html?t=25353

It might be of some help

Cheers

Jamie :ootd:

[vorpallemur]

My lovely Flame-Haired Celtic Amazon Goddess' first X-Kilt was out of corduroy.

She wrote a blow-by-blow thread with many photos here

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/c...x.html?t=25353

It might be of some help

Cheers

Jamie :ootd:

Yes. It's been very useful. Especially to know that I'm not the only crazy that's done something like this.

A couple pictures:

The welt patch for the right hand rear pocket:


part of cutting out the welt, showing how many layers of fabric are involved:
(11, if I'm counting right...)

[sydnie7]

Great color! And the RevK lends itself nicely to corduroy, because you don't have to go against the cords when tapering.

I wish you luck with the hem, I'd have tackled that first before all the pleats were in place. When working cross-selvedge like that, I mark each piece separately so that seams are in the "gutter" of a pleat -- that is, hidden at the inside fold of a pleat. Of course that means finishing the raw edges inside with an overstitch, but my machine does that nicely.

Looking forward to the finished piece!

[vorpallemur]

Great color! And the RevK lends itself nicely to corduroy, because you don't have to go against the cords when tapering.

I wish you luck with the hem, I'd have tackled that first before all the pleats were in place. When working cross-selvedge like that, I mark each piece separately so that seams are in the "gutter" of a pleat -- that is, hidden at the inside fold of a pleat. Of course that means finishing the raw edges inside with an overstitch, but my machine does that nicely.

Looking forward to the finished piece!

The reason I've not done the hem is that I don't know where it's going end up. I'm doing a "jeans waist". that puts the back an inch or two higher than the front. If you hem first, you end up with it longer in front than in the back. that looks a bit weird. If you hem last, you can mark using the floor as a reference point, and get a uniform hem. I considered doing it in pieces, like you suggest, but that's harder, and requires more fabric. With the narrow wales, the vertical seems are pretty invisible, and is worked out, only two of them are visible, and only about half of them show.

I just had a minor sewing miracle occur: I ran out of thread on the spool and the bobbin at the same time, and at the end of a seam! Of course, I can't find the second spool of thread I bought, so it's off to get more. I don't think I've used it already.

[Aldisimo]

I just had a minor sewing miracle occur: I ran out of thread on the spool and the bobbin at the same time, and at the end of a seam!

Miracle is right. You should pick up a few lottery tickets while you're out!