IS less EVER more?

[Pleater]

Summer is ending here in the UK and I thought I would make a nice wool blend kilt for the Autumn days, nothing too heavy as the temperatures are still mild.

I have a long length of fabric 60 inches wide, which I decided would be best cut across selvage to selvage, due to the tartan 'squares' being decidedly rectangular - I got it cheap - so I cut 4 strips, 20 ft of fabric and set out my plans on how to pleat it, and then began to consider adding another strip, so that I could have more than 18 pleats.

They are 18 perfectly respectably sized pleats, but the reveals would be just over an inch wide and now I am on a dilemma - make a perfectly good kilt which I might feel is not quite perfect enough - or indulge in the whole 8 yards which would give me enough fabric for over 20 pleats, reveals of less than an inch and enough fabric to trim the selvages to make perfect joins.

It is a medium weight fabric in the Semple tartan - I was told that it was Black Watch by the seller - I intend to dye the pale stripe another colour, blue perhaps, and pleat to the red.

Having been fortunate to have retained a hip measurement closer to that of my younger days whilst my waist, alas, has not - I don't need to be concerned about not being the right shape for a kilt - however - have others faced such a problem when thinking of an addition to an already quite well kilt filled wardrobe, and if so did you succumb to the siren call of 8 yards, or decide on a more frugal length on anything other than purely financial considerations, or youthful slenderness?

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[MacLowlife]

These are strange questions you pose, ATP, and I look forward to hearing how you resolve them. My instinct would be to use this as an experiment- to do something with this pieced together fabric that you might not want to attempt with the really good stuff. But I am not entirely sure which way you are leaning or which way would give you that experimental experience, as it were.

As for the waist-to-hip ratio shift, I am fairly sure it happens a lot to men in the US.

Can you drape and pin before you decide? The wonders of digital photography might help you ( and the rest of us) to evaluate your various courses before you put needle to thread. Or before you do much more than create the spliced length you are going to want. Do bear in mind that you are talking about 1/7th more fabric or so, aren't you? What if you stuck with 18 pleats, but made them bigger? Or went the other way, more pleats, but slim?

"Not quite perfect enough" is dangerous territory. Is anything perfect enough? Will you be pleased with having salvaged this poorly woven rag and turned it into a duchess, or must you have a Queen? Which plan will make a better story?

We await your tale

[piperdbh]

Make a box-pleated kilt, with wide pleats, similar to the one that the lady Chrystel made a couple of months ago. Less fabric, fewer pleats, more uniqueness.

[Pleater]

I awoke this morning and laughed.

The solution is obvious now.

I do not need to cut one more strip but five, and make two kilts, one with four strips, a modest 20 ft, and one with five, an ample 25ft, so that I can have one kilt with a moderate number of pleats for the warmer Autumn days, and another for when the remnants of hurricanes pass over.

Having bought an ample amount of fabric there is no sense in an either/or dilemma, BOTH is the obvious solution to the problem.

Now all I need to do is the sewing.

I should have remembered that more kilts is always the best option!!

Anne the Pleater :ootd: