What is this kilt pleated to?

[mayberry]

Hello all,
While procrastinating on ebay, I came across this kilt (too small for me). I am confused by the pleating. It seems to be neither to the stripe nor the sett. Any thoughts?
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/261350949201?...84.m1423.l2649

Cheers,
John

[Kilted Cole]

It appears to be pleated to the sett....needs a fresh ironing for sure though.

[Hawk]

Steve or Barb or Rocky could confirm this also, from our Kiltmaking community, what say you folks?

Hawk

[Chas]

It appears to be pleated to the sett....needs a fresh ironing for sure though.

Agree 100%.

[Grizzly]

I agree pleated to the crease.... I mean sett.

[Nathan]

I was curious about the tartan on that one.

[TheOfficialBren]

I think that it os one of those odd pleating jobs that Barb T. and Bonnie Heather have both mentioned in the past...neither sett nor stripe but something in the middle...but I forget the reasoning behind it. Perhaps sett size is an issue with this particular tartan or perhaps pleating wasn't as much of a consideration. I've seen quite a few "kilts" at Games and Festivals which to the untrained eye look fine but the trained eye sees what is really happening--a seamstress made a kilt-like-garment but knew nothing about proper kilt construction (fine stitching but an odd outcome).

I recall a number of historical examples that are pleated in this way. This kilt, being obviously old, might be one of those.

I also recall very old historical examples that are entirely random in their pleating, neither stripe nor sett nor rhyme nor reason.

Just my tuppence.

An expert will weigh in shortly and certainly be better equipped to respond. That's why I love this place.

[chasem]

It looks to be a rough attempt at pleating to the sett. I you open one of the larger size images and focus on the fell - ignoring the wonky pleats - it's a little more obvious that the attempt at pleating to the sett is there.

Looking at the apron, I could see where this might be a rough tartan to pleat to the sett with so many lines, but it shouldn't be overly complicated. My guess is someone got impatient and just pleated to the "sett approximation"

[Tobus]

Looks to me like it's pleated to nothing in particular. It's definitely not pleated to the sett. Not even close. If you look at the vertical distribution of the horizontal black stripes, you'll see that it alternates between two and three thick black stripes (with unequal red/black fields between them). But I do not see any attempt to recreate that pattern horizontally with the pleating.

My guess is that this tartan has such a large sett (i.e. the pattern takes so much fabric to repeat) that it was impossible to make it work with regular knife pleats to either the sett or stripe. So they just pleated it to a nominal pleat size and said to hell with the pattern.

[unixken]

Perhaps it was pleated such that each pleat is the same consistent depth in inches, regardless of where the folds were placed, relative to the vertical stripes of the sett.