Pleating options and double-checking calculations for kilt-like kilted skirt

[hmonroe]

This is all very new to me, so I apologize if I use the wrong terminology! I am a semi-experienced seamstress and am interested in applying many of the traditional kilt-making techniques into a longer skirt (and am awaiting the arrival of The Art of Kiltmaking to help!). In the meantime, I have been playing around with pleating options in Paintbrush. Although I love Barb's Kingussie kilt in Hudson Bay tartan, I am still not sure if I want a kingussie or knife-pleated kilt. I do know that I don't want box pleats.

I plan to use the House of Edgar Muted Munro, as my middle name is Monroe from my maternal lineage. The sett repeat is 21cm/8.25", so I was thinking of pleating to two stripes per sett so I can buy less fabric. I'm hoping someone can check my math and give advice on if they like any of my pleating arrangements enough for me to commit to the less-fabric plan. I will of course check pleating options in person with the real fabric when it arrives.

26" waist, 39" hip -> 16" of pleating at waist, 24" of pleating at hip to get ~60% pleats (more feminine, will allow for future weight gain). So if I want 1" wide pleats at the hip, I need 24 pleats with 2 pleats per 8.25" = 24*(8.25"/2) = 99" for the pleating and (40"-24")*2 = 32" for the two aprons -> 3.7 yards/3.4 meters for both. I was thinking about getting 4 meters (4.4 yards) which would give me an extra 26.5" for apron pleats, fringe, centering front apron, etc. Do you think that's enough?

Here is the tartan in the muted colorway:
MunroMutedTartan.jpg

And here are 3 pleating options I came up with (1 kingussie, 2 knife). I am of course very open to suggestion!

Kingussie pleated to alternating blue/green stripe:
KingussiePleatedtoAlternatingBlueGreen2.png

Knife-pleated to alternating blue/green stripe:
KnifePleatedtoAlternatingBlueGreen.png

Knife-pleated to every blue stripe:
KnifePleatedToBlueStripe.png

Thank you for any help!

edit:

after doing more math, I realized that that pleat depth would be awfully small if I get two per sett - like 1.5" per pleat. I get closer to 3" depth per pleat if I alternate a blue stripe with the triple stripe, which will have a distance of around 6.5" between them and a pleat width of 1.4". That would require 4 yards/3.7 meters of fabric (would need to add more for apron pleats, fringe, etc.) and looks like this. But perhaps that's too busy? Who knew one could think about this so much!

KingussiePleatedtoAlternatingBlueTriple.png

[Pleater]

I was about to warn you that the pleats would be very small at two to the set, but I see that you have come to that conclusion.
Have you considered a reverse Kingussie pleating option? I find that the backward pointing pleats are a good option both out on the heathland and around the house and garden, as the pleats fold around like the feathers on a bird's wing, so that they do not get snagged as easily.
You might need to fine tune the placing of folds on the pleat with the greater reduction required to narrow down to the waist measurement for a woman's garment.
Watch that there is enough space so that you do not get stripes vanishing or forming obvious inverted Vs if that is possible.

[hmonroe]

Thank you for your advice!I hadn't even thought of the stripes disappearing...

Since I need to lose 1/3 of the width of the pleats from hip to waist, I think that really limits my options. The only part of this tartan with enough continuous stuff around a stripe is the triple green stripe surrounded by red. I don't even think I could reasonably pleat to the sett?

By counting out pixels, it seems like I could do a reverse kingussie where the narrowest part of the waist would look like this:

WaistofPleatedTriple.png

and the lower part would look like this:

ReverseKingussie.png

This arrangement would have 18 pleats at 1 1/3" wide each at the hip to give the 24" of hip pleating and ~0.9" each at the waist to give the 16" of waist pleating. There would then be one pleat per sett, or 18*8.25" for pleats + 2*16" for apron = 4.7 yards of fabric for the pleating and apron and thus I would purchase ~5.25 meters to give me 28" for the apron pleats and fringe + a tiny bit extra. Does that seem right? Would that pleat width look reasonable for kingussie or reverse kingussie?

[Barb T]

Just a thought - this is the first kilt you've sewn? Ann has already pointed out that, with a very stripey tartan, it's really tough to avoid losing stripes in the pleat taper. The "spearpoints" that result can be an interesting (although not conventional) design element, but it requires really, really precise pleating. This isn't something I would recommend trying for your first kilt. Also, keeping all those stripes exactly the same distance from both edges of the pleats, while simultaneously matching all the horizontal stripes, is not something that I've seen many first-time kiltmakers manage successfully.

My suggestion would be to choose a simpler tartan - one that you like and would be happy to wear - and learn how to make a kilt with that. Then, you'll know what you're up against with that very stripey tartan with tapered pleats.

[hmonroe]

Although this will be my first kilt, I'm not totally new to matching patterned fabric (though I certainly haven't had to do so many matched seams before!). My favorite parts of the dress-making process are hand-sewing and figuring out how to match patterns as well as possible, which is part of why I became interested in making a kilted skirt. That being said, this will be about double the fabric cost of any previous article of clothing I've made, which is quite daunting! Although I'm pretty set on this tartan, I may do a test run of just the pleating with a cheaper plaid fabric to make sure I'm up to it. Thank you for the suggestion!

Does anyone have any thoughts on my calculations for the fabric amount?

[Balaamsass51]

Wouldn't the amount of fabric needed also have to take into account the total length of the skirt? Surely the longer the more material needed regardless of all this discussion about how to pleat it? Or did I miss that in the previous posts? Just a male butting into a very interesting discussion between the ladies.

[Barb T]

"I get closer to 3" depth per pleat if I alternate a blue stripe with the triple stripe, which will have a distance of around 6.5" between them and a pleat width of 1.4"."

If you look at your tartan, and you put a

[hmonroe]

Wouldn't the amount of fabric needed also have to take into account the total length of the skirt? Surely the longer the more material needed regardless of all this discussion about how to pleat it?

This fabric is supposed to be 31.5" (0.8 meters) wide. I believe that the House of Edgar Mediumweight Old & Rare Clan & District Tartans are all finished with a true selvedge and therefore I won't need to lose any length to a hem. To maximize the length while having a more feminine 1" waistband, I could use a ribbon to finish the inside of the waistband. This is often done in women's skirts when made with heavy or precious fabrics. If I did this, I could have the skirt be 29.5" long which is mid-calf on 5'7" me.

Here is a picture of the inside of a women's wool skirt with this technique:

petersham-waistband.jpg

Because the ribbon is thinner than the wool and does not need to be folded to hide raw edges, you reduce bulk.

You can use ribbon to do all of the facing and therefore avoid the visible waistband seam or binding altogether and have a 31" skirt in this fabric. That would look like this at the waist (though perhaps all of the pleats would make this a bad option):

Enlight233_large.JPG

If I wanted a skirt longer than 31" and were stuck with this fabric, it would be a nightmare! I would have to piece together many lengths and the grain would be flipped from lengthwise going around the body to crosswise going around the body (which is more usual in dress-making, actually). I think one would just find a double-wide fabric instead! Then you could make a floor-length skirt in the usual way.

[Barb T]

Does anyone have any thoughts on my calculations for the fabric amount?

26" waist, 39" hip -> 16" of pleating at waist, 24" of pleating at hip to get ~60% pleats (more feminine, will allow for future weight gain). So if I want 1" wide pleats at the hip, I need 24 pleats with 2 pleats per 8.25" = 24*(8.25"/2) = 99" for the pleating and (40"-24")*2 = 32" for the two aprons -> 3.7 yards/3.4 meters for both. I was thinking about getting 4 meters (4.4 yards) which would give me an extra 26.5" for apron pleats, fringe, centering front apron, etc. Do you think that's enough?

If this were a traditional kilt, you would have about 20" of pleats. Having 24" of pleats would look odd in a trad kilt on someone your size and would make the apron look unusually small (like the kilt was made for someone bigger than you, and you took in the apron to make it 4" smaller). Having said that, I don't know if you are actually interested in making a trad kilt, so it depends on whether you want this to look like a traditional kilt or not. You can, of course, make it any way you want.

If you decide to make it 60% pleats in order to let it out for future weight gain, you will need to put extra fabric into the facing of the apron and underapron, plus put in a hidden pleat in both the apron and underapron to store enough tartan to make the apron bigger in the future. You can't just switch some pleats into a bigger apron, because all the pleats will be cut out to reduce bulk in the pleats above the bottom of the fell.

If you were making a trad knife pleated kilt or a reverse Kingussie, you would need more than a yard each for the apron and a yard for the underapron (and that's not counting a hidden pleat and extra-large facings), plus tartan for the pleats. If you had 1" pleats at 1 pleat per sett (as per your later post), you would need 20x8.25" = 4.6 yards for the pleats. So, at a minimum, you would need about 7 yards for someone your size. I would, for example, buy 6 yards of tartan for an 10-year-old Highland dancer. That's just a comparison for what I would use for a trad kilt. If you don't want to make a trad kilt, of course, you could make do with however much you wanted to buy.

I assume that single width tartan will make a kilt long enough for what you have in mind?

Just want to warn you that there are actually no instructions in the book for a reverse Kingussie, so you would have to wing the layout, the 2nd half of the pleats, the basting, the steeking, etc.

[hmonroe]

If you were making a trad knife pleated kilt or a reverse Kingussie, you would need more than a yard each for the apron and a yard for the underapron (and that's not counting a hidden pleat and extra-large facings), plus tartan for the pleats.

First of all, thank you for your detailed reply! Let me just make sure I understand -- so I would need however much in pleating plus a little over 2 extra yards for both aprons? So let's say I want 20-22" in pleating and counting pixels is pretty close to the actual measurements in inches. To get the look of my second round of pictures:

with waist like this, therefore avoiding disappearing stripes:
WaistofPleatedTriple.png

and hips/below like this:
ReverseKingussie.png

the pleats would be 1 1/3" wide at the hip. I don't think I can get smaller pleats that that without either losing stripes or making a red lawn chair. This would make 16 pleats give a little over 21", which would be a little bigger than traditional but not crazy. So then my pleating would be 16*8.25" = 3.7 yards + 2+ yards for apron = 6 yards (5.5 meters) total? Did I do that right?