Basting the pleats for pressing

[Barb T]

Pressing a kilt isn't difficult work, but it's _very_ easy to wind up with the pleats pressed in the wrong place. Once the pleats are pressed wrong, it's tough to get the creases out and get the pleats back where they should be pressed. Basting the pleats before pressing holds the pleats where they should be. It doesn't take very much time, and it's very much worth the effort.

If you don't baste the pleats, it's very easy to have the pleats "splay" on the ironing board. If this happens, and the pleats are not pressed with absolutely the same width from the bottom of the fell to the bottom of the kilt, you wind up with "the wave", and the kilt no longer is a nice smooth panel across the back. Below, you'll see three kilts. The first one has been ruined by splaying the pleats when they were pressed; the other two have been pressed correctly.

Ugh:



Much better:



Basting helps hold the pleats for pressing. The crucial thing is to make sure that the pleats are basted absolutely the same width from the bottom of the fell to the bottom of the kilt, as in the drawing below:



Thread a needle with white basting thread. Lay the kilt out in your lap with the top edge to the left and the pleats across your lap. Start at the bottom of the kilt at the apron edge. Pick up the apron edge plus the first pleat. Lap the apron edge onto the first pleat at the right point, and take a couple of big stitches (1/2-3/4") through all four thicknesses:



Then pick up the next pleat, lap the previous pleat onto it at the right place, carry the thread from the first stitches, and take two or three stitches through four thicknesses. Because you work your way across the kilt picking up only one pleat at a time, you aren't trying to sew a whole pile of unwieldy cloth all at once.



Work your way across the bottom of the kilt. Make another row just below the bottom of the fell, and a couple more in between. The diagrams shows three stitches in each pleat, but I've found that two holds just fine and takes less time to do:



When it comes time to take out the basting stitches, don't use anything sharp that could snag or cut the kilt. Don't use scissors, a knife, or a seam ripper. Get something blunt like a big knitting needle or a crochet hook. I use a pair of blunt tip tweezers. Rather than cutting the threads and pulling out all the little bits, I just slip the blade of the tweezers under each thread and pull it back through the cloth.

Hope this helps!

Barb T.

[SFCRick]

thanks Barb

[McFarkus]

Very clearly demonstrated. It would also be good to emphasize not putting an iron directly on the kilt, but to put a cloth on top of the kilt before pressing it.

[turpin]

That will be in the Wizard's kilt pressing tutorial, bro.

[Ancienne Alliance]

Thank you .
Excellent

[northernsky]

Thank you Barb for that very informative lesson. Now for those of us for whom a needle and thread is akin to major surgery...where would folks like us get their kilts pressed? Are there such people in the world who specialize in this? I note that the Wizard in Victoria presses kilts for the military. Would there be a shop in every town that has a kilted regiment who does this? What about folks who don't live in such centres?

[1MUNK3]

Thank you. I've always pressed my kilts with out basting and it is rather time consuming. After reading this and trying it first hand it was incredible not only how fast it now has become but the pleats come out even better than my O.C.D. way of doing it previously. Thanks agin.
Yours Aye,
Sean

[Barb T]

I just added a couple of photos to the original tutorial.

[bricelythgoe]

Just wondering if this would work on any type of fabric, i.e. polyviscose.

[Barb T]

Sure - why not? Just don't melt your fabric with an iron that's too hot......