[flatsphere]

Hello everyone,
I'm new to the forum but not new to highland dress. I'm working on my 3rd kilt and have a pleating challenge.
The MacDougall tartan from this particular mill is a double wide set. That is that the patter repeats about every 16 inches. No matter how I've tried to pleat I end up with alternating very deep next to very shallow pleats.

I'd like to finish this to wear to the Costa Mesa games on Memorial weekend.
Advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[Pleater]

How are you trying to pleat?

You are - possibly - trying to create identical reveals - if so perhaps try an experiment with alternating reveals?

My latest kilt, (which is entitled to give reproachful looks as it has languished unfinished for some time), is pleated to a stripe, but the fabric is difficult and I have ended up with pleat reveals of the three different bands of colour, each with its own stripe centralised on the reveal. It actually looks rather good, somewhere between pleating to set and stripe.

It was not at all what I intended to do, but after some time trying out different pleatings it was the only way to make it work out. I think that sometimes the fabric determines how it can be pleated, and the only way forward is to find out what that way is.

Anne the Pleater

[The Wizard of BC]

I find that when pleating to a very large Sett that it is sometimes helpful to "cheat" the Sett slightly which results in alternating pleat depths like you describe. You just need to insure that no Pleat Depth is too shallow and destroys the Swish.

Another alternative is to pleat so that the reveal on the outside of the Kilt shows alternating elements of the Tartan.

For example: Let's say you have a hypothetical Tartan that includes alternating Red Stripes, and Yellow stripes. But the distance of the Total Sett from one Red Stripe to the next Red Stripe is 12 inches. But the distance of 1/2 of the Sett or between a Red Stripe and a Yellow Stripe is 6".
You could choose to pleat the Kilt with alternating one Red Striped pleat, & one Yellow Striped Pleat.
A Kilt like in my example would look similar to some Military Kilts done in the Stewart Hunting Tartan. We Pleat it with alternating Red And Yellow Stripes and call it "The Catsup & Mustard Kilt".

[Barb T.]

Can you post a scan/photo of the tartan, with a tape measure in the picture? That will help us give you some advice.

[flatsphere]

Originally Posted by Barb T.

Can you post a scan/photo of the tartan, with a tape measure in the picture? That will help us give you some advice.

Hi Barb,

You'll find it at this link. Have not decided if to pleat to set or to stripe, though I'm leaning towards stripe.

http://cid-72e00564d4d68ac5.skydrive...TartanWset.JPG

Thanks in advance!

[flatsphere]

Originally Posted by The Wizard of BC

I find that when pleating to a very large Sett that it is sometimes helpful to "cheat" the Sett slightly which results in alternating pleat depths like you describe... A Kilt like in my example would look similar to some Military Kilts done in the Stewart Hunting Tartan. We Pleat it with alternating Red And Yellow Stripes and call it "The Catsup & Mustard Kilt".

Hi Steve,
I did this once with my father-in-law's kilt, using the muted version of this tartan. It looks good but wanted something more traditional.
On this tartan I tried to horizontal stripe, but it make my rear look too big.
Cheers!

[The Wizard of BC]

It is very rare to find a Tartan that can be pleated using a Horizontal Stripe as the base.

What you end up with is the rear of the Kilt with only Horizontal elements.

We call this "The Dread Lawnchair Effect".

[GlassMan]

I'm not a kilt maker so I can't help you with the issue of a double-wide sett, but I can state that I have a double-wide posterior and it doesn't need any horizontal striping to help it look massive.

[Barb T.]

Originally Posted by flatsphere

Hi Barb,

You'll find it at this link. Have not decided if to pleat to set or to stripe, though I'm leaning towards stripe.

http://cid-72e00564d4d68ac5.skydrive...TartanWset.JPG

Thanks in advance!

Well, that is a bugbear of a tartan, no doubt. I can't see how you can effectively cheat the pleats on this one - there just aren't enough elements that repeat twice a sett (as there are in the Black Watch). If you decide to pleat to the sett, you might try experimenting with a look that approximates the tartan but doesn't try to repeat it. There are so darn many stripes anyway that no one is going to notice that the tartan isn't quite perfect on the back.

You don't have a lot of options for pleating to the stripe. In order to solve the problem with the huge sett, you need two pleats per sett, and there aren't any candidate identical stripes that appear twice per sett and are more or less evenly spaced.** You could choose to pleat to the white stripe in the wide reds, but you'd have pleats that alternate dramatically in depth. If you're not happy with that, I'd be tempted to pin up a pleating with the white stripe between the wide greens alternating with one of the white stripes in the wide reds. You won't know whether it might look attractive until you try it, but that seems to me to be your best option. The only other choice is the one that Steve suggested - alternate two very different stripes across the back.

Be sure to share pics of what you decide to do!

And this is a wonderful tartan for potential tartan designers to look at - this is an example of what you do NOT want to design!!

**For those of you who aren't sure why two identical stripes per sett are key to pleating such a tartan, here's an example of a tartan with a sett as big as the MacDougall example (this one is about 16"). Tartan is the Weathered Stewart Old Sett. The full sett spans nearly the entire apron (from the middle of one big gray undercheck to the middle of the second big gray undercheck).



Fortunately, the narrow red stripe in the dark brown repeats twice per sett, pretty evenly spaced. This allows two pleats per sett of approximately equal depth and a reasonable number of pleats total. This tartan would not pleat at all to the sett.

[flatsphere]

Thanks for all the input. I'm glad to hear that it was not just my inexperience making me stumble on this one.
This is how I currently have it pinned, but not sure I like the horizontal stripe...

http://cid-72e00564d4d68ac5.skydrive...%7C_Hpleat.JPG

I'll post a picture of my last kilt from the muted version of this tartan during the weekend.

Cheers!