Knife/box; one easier?

[Taskr]

Going to attempt a kilt. 37 waist and 42 hip, with allowance. Just a wee bit shy of 5yds small-sett Cape Breton if 4.97 is a wee bit. There's plenty for a box pleat, and I've managed a decent enough pleat for a shallow knife. With one XKilt being my only thus far, is the 'just enough' for a 5yd knife perhaps going to leave me too much hassle eeking out a finished kilt?

[unixken]

Knife pleats are, by convention, approximately 3/4" to 7/8" wide, give or take. Your pinned up knife pleat test looks like each is a couple inches wide. If narrower, more conventional width knife pleats wont work due to the limited amount of fabric, then I would go with a box pleat.

[Taskr]

Thanks Ken
Yes the knife pleats are wide, mostly from just playing with different pleating. It was educational to sit for quite a while and pleat different ways. So many different looks,including some quite horrid. It does appear the small sett isn't going to support pleating with only 5 yards very well. I can manage a 3" box pleat nicely, however. Just deciding on the grey or the green on centre.

[Grizzled Ian]

Hello Taskr,

I confronted a similar situation with a piece of Maple Leaf material that I am making into a kilt for a friend. The tartan was woven by nbfabrics (successor to Batleys), and the sett is about 7 1/2" wide. After pinning up a number of possible knife pleat solutions, I realised that I simply did not have enough fabric to make a knife-pleated kilt, so I embraced the challenge of a box pleat, guided by Barb Tewksbury's and Matt Newsome's instructions.

The Maple Leaf has a red and green undercheck, with a narrow green stripe centred in the red undercheck, and the narrower stripes of brown, green and yellow centred in the green that give this tartan its asymmetry. This is the solution I settled on: I have sewn up seven 3" wide box pleats that alternate the undercheck, R-G-R-G-R-G-R. The result is that each pair of pleats shows 6 of the 7 1/2 inches of the full set.

This solution doesn't quite give the effect of pleating to the sett, because there is a narrow stripe in the other colour at the margin of each undercheck that is visible horizontally but missing from the vertical of the pleats. But nor does it have the strong horizontal effect you get from pleating to the stripe. I am rather pleased with the visual outcome.

But wait, there's more! Normally when you box pleat to the stripe, you go over one sett at a time. With my solution, I have gone over 1 1/2 setts each pleat, but even so, there is plenty enough material for me to include a slash pocket on the right-hand side. (Those familiar with Steve Ashton's slash pockets know that one of these requires fully 20 inches of material: it starts like a 10" deep pleat.)

So, Taskr, unless you have already started pleating, and unless your sett is less than 6", might I respectfully suggest that you try test pinning your box pleats to the alternate undercheck.

But wherever you are at, may you Kilt On And Prosper!

[Taskr]

Thank you, Ian
I've resigned myself to the fact that I've not enough cloth to knife pleat. I did just manage knife but with mere cm to spare and not quite 2" pleat depth. I've been having a lot of fun and fascination with pinning box pleats in all manner including to the sett, but I keep going back to centering on the yellow stripe in the green with a grey edge that gives a 3" box pleat. It is sett-like with the light yellow line absent yet reveals under. It also provides for the underpleats to meet together nicely. Being a 3" sett. The Tewskbury/Newsome supplement is providing wonderful guidance along with a Freedom 12oz PV that I've studied for construction. The splits and pleating I get. It's that 1/2 pleat spacing and 9" that took up some grey matter (and some XMarks searches). Final markups to be done soon ..then one last big breath and pause before needle and thread make their way through some tartan