Hi there,

I am in the planning stages of making a kilt from the instructions from the Art of Kilt Making book and wanted to make sure I understood the process for selecting the ideal split numbers. Since I'm a data visualization nerd, I inputted all of the data from Appendix B into a table for analysis. I did some basic calculations like what the difference between the waist and hips were, apron vs pleats at the hip and waist, etc. Below is the analysis:

Click image for larger version.  Name: Split Analysis.jpg  Views: 42  Size: 123.3 KB  ID: 41652

I did, however find, several anomalies that did not make sense to me, so I wanted to get an understanding about how the highlighted values below are outside the norm:

Click image for larger version.  Name: Split Analysis - Outliers.jpg  Views: 26  Size: 126.4 KB  ID: 41653

For example, starting with the first column, it is grouping all of the measurements where the hips minus waist dimensions are the same. The first highlighted is there the difference is 4 inches. All of these in this group (4 of them) all have 4" between the hips and waist. You can see a pattern/trend in the apron/pleat measurements until you get to the last value (39 waist x 43 hips) where the trend breaks. Similar things happen where highlighted.

Note: The "ID" column shows the example # in appendix B. For example, A-27 is example #27 in appendix B on page 122. All of the values are taken from the table with the exception of my calculations which are just calculations between the given numbers.

I started this all by trying to calculate my own splits (waist: 37, hips: 39), and not seeing the actual calculation to determine the ideal splits. I understand I could have just asked this outright, but I like to know how it is actually derived so I can create a formula to calculate other splits.

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide and thanks so much for keeping this amazing art form alive.