Hello from Finland

**Yakousei** · 6th February 17, 01:50 PM

Hi o/

/me : 31 year old former small electronics installer, current upholstery student (last few months) living in Finland. A bit of an oddball and I like to make things with my hands.

But why kilts? : First time when I thought of getting a kilt was back in 2002 or 2003 for a High School dance.. Unfortunately local rental shop didn't have one and alas I had to settle for a nice black tux.

Then again during the years I've thought of getting one, but lazy as I tend to be with my shopping habits - never ended up getting one for myself. Not to mention the new-school ones (511 Tactical etc) seem to be tad expensive.

Well few years back I went back to school and started learning upholstery. Well trough that I've gotten some knowledge of fabrics, sewing and whatnot.. Still not at the level of your average seamstress when it comes to clothing, but thought I'd end up trying my luck and make a kilt eventually.. So last year I bought few meters of M05 cloth from Varusteleka which is old model of pattern that our military used. The protection on the pattern expired and they started to chuck it out left and right

Unfortunately we sold our industrial machine three years ago, but we do have a Singer special edition über-black-something-something and a SUPERJ34 from Toyota - so lets get started.

Few months back I saw a youtube video for 5.11 Tactical with decent enough close ups : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiaR0M0852E but still that wasn't enough so I ended up pushing the project into backburner. And one day I stumbled upon X-kilt pdf *halleluja!*. Now this should get me trough the project right? Well my gf ended up going to her parents last weekend and I got my project glasses on - a bottle of sherry and some beer, and started my everest project by reading and doing the kilt.

Now before I show the current progress (I did some on friday-way more on saturday-little on sunday-and more today : Hopefully the project is done tomorrow), I want to thank the makers of the PDF and make few suggestions while I still remember.
- More pictures <3
I myself am a visual learner, and pictures tell way more than any amount of text would.
- Any chance of later update in metric perhaps?
Yeah it's just conversion but oh how my head started hurting when I had to think things in inches and then again in metric / do the conversion and hope I was still on the right track.
- Remember the part about *Bar-Tacking the Pleats*?
As a man I have the concentration skills of a goldfish (someone might identify with this?) and English ain't my major so some wordst might escape me every now and then.. Well that happened here and I ended up zig-zagging the whole friggin top part of the pleats

This little error I ended up noticing at the tapering part *oh lord, time for some more sherry*.. So as mentioned before - more pictures <3
- The appendix 1 was super helpful, although I ended up changing my design quite a bit.
And didn't quite understand the part where there was both under and over-apron (when there was under apron on the other side..) but I'll most likely figure this out on my next one. Yeah - making another for sure.
- Maybe add a temp at the end that has all the _mark your numbers_ that people could print.. And possibly add a small kilt-explanation-kilt dictionary to the pdf?

But yeah - once again thanks for letting me in. Thanks for the super helpful pdf and thanks you for reading this wall of text

And here's some pictures (only missing the top flaps of the cargo pockets.

*no spoiler tags to hide the pictures? sorry*

Now the measurements might be a bit off due to conversion problems and the lovely nectar (sherry).
The next one will be more on the spot :P

PS : Been together with my gf for over 10 years now.. And every now and then I ask her if it would be cool that when someday when we get married I could use a kilt in the ceremony... Well she hasn't completely squashed this, but I do need to offer some nice options for her to get the approval :P

**Father Bill** · 6th February 17, 04:52 PM

Welcome to the "Great Rabble!"

**Tarheel** · 6th February 17, 05:45 PM

Well met and welcome new friend. I like the larger panel in the back to compensate for the flair of your hips. That seems a good way for box pleats to blend without messing up the cammo pattern.

**ASinclair** · 7th February 17, 04:59 AM

Hello and

**John_Carrick** · 7th February 17, 07:40 AM

Welcome from Ireland

**Kiltedjohn** · 7th February 17, 08:22 AM

Welcome from a Scotsman living in the English midlands.

I haven't tried to make a kilt, but I'll keep in mind the tip about using sherry in the process!