Sett size and pleat depth...

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

I am starting a pleated garmet made in the traditional kilt manner for my wife (not going to name the garment, might provide fuel for this fire!) It is the tartan seen below. My question is how deep should I make the pleats? The sett is 4.5", and I am going to pleat to the center white stripe. That makes a nice 1" reveal, but if I only use one sett per pleat, the depth is kind of small, only 3.5". For a traditional look and swish, should I consider
2 setts per pleat? That gives a (virtual) 9" sett. And with a 1" reveal at the hips, a 4" depth (8" material), which is quite nice.

Any thoughts, especially from our more trad makers?

[ccga3359]

I am starting a pleated garmet made in the traditional kilt manner for my wife (not going to name the garment, might provide fuel for this fire!) It is the tartan seen below. My question is how deep should I make the pleats? The sett is 4.5", and I am going to pleat to the center white stripe. That makes a nice 1" reveal, but if I only use one sett per pleat, the depth is kind of small, only 3.5". For a traditional look and swish, should I consider
2 setts per pleat? That gives a (virtual) 9" sett. And with a 1" reveal at the hips, a 4" depth (8" material), which is quite nice.

Any thoughts, especially from our more trad makers?

Go with the larger pleats! Please use as much material as possible.

[MacWage]

Personally, I'd use a double. It allows for deeper pleats. I'd go for wider reveal with deeper pleats than a narrower with shallow pleats for a given piece of fabric. Most of the time, that isn't really an option and the sett determines the pleating, period.
I hope she like her (s)Kirt!

[Warlock]

Very nice tartan! I'm partial to red tartans. Must post pics when finished!

[Dreadbelly]

Red?

That is pepto bismal pink!

And I want pictures when it is done... That is gonna look fabu!

Go with as deep of pleats as possible.

[Splash_4]

Either way, she is going to get noticed in that pink y chromosome challenged garment.

[MacHummel]

Personnally I go with the 1" reveal and the deep pleat you'll get a better swish when your wife walks GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! plus you'll have a more substance to your kilt.

[ScottInNewHampshire]

Deeper pleats. Gonna look mighty cool. I could see one for you too with a "Tough Enough To Wear PINK" tee shirt. Just a thought!

[Barb T]

Hi!

Can't make this decision without more information. Pleated with a double sett, each pleat will use 9" of tartan. The apron and underapron will take up over 2 yards total (probably more like 80", if you put in a good deep pleat to the left of the apron). If the kilt had 23 pleats, you'd need another 207" for the pleats, for a total of exactly 8 yards. If you have that much, it will work. If you only have 6 yards (216"), you'd have 216-80 for the pleats or 136" for the pleats. That would make only 15 pleats.

So, it depends on how much tartan you have and how many pleats you want.

Also, how wide is that multiple white stripe that you're going to pleat to? If it's about as wide as the pleat will be, the back of the kilt could look pretty busy - lots of little white stripes with not much red. If that were the case, I'd _definitely_ go for the double sett, even if you don't have 8 yards, because that would force the pleats to be wider and to include more red on each side of the white. This will be particularly important if your wife has a significant hip/waist differential. If the white stripes just fit into a pleat at the hips, and the pleats have to taper much toward the top, some of the edge stripes will pinch out between the hip and the top, and that won't look very good.

So, my advice is to calculate how many pleats you can get with each option, then figure out how wide the reveal would have to be (which will be governed by the # of pleats - if you can get only 15 pleats and you need 20" (for example) across the pleats, that will require pleats with a reveal of more than 1.25", not 1").

Then, do a test pinning _both_ at the hips and the waist so that you can see what the pleats will look like tapered.

And keep us posted with what you decide to do!!!

Barb

[way2fractious]

KCW,

So far only two choices have been presented for kilt pleating (as opposed to a kilted skirt), one with shallow depth and one with mega-depth.

An alternative is to split the difference. Consider putting the white center stripe down one pleat, then moving over only 1 1/2 setts and putting a solid pink color block down the next pleat, another 1 1/2 setts and a white center stripe down the next, and so on...

To my mind, that would present a bold presentation of white stripe and solid pink, without getting "busy" at all.

w2f