First X-kilt

[vorpallemur]

I'm making my first kilt, working from Alan H's x kilt instructions. If I can follow them, they must be okay. I started Friday, with a trip to the local fabric store, where I was the only man who wasn't an accompanying husband, and one of the few people less than 60. I picked up a piece of khaki poly-cotton twill. I only bought four yards, I should have bought 4.5 or 5. (Four is enough for my 44 inch rump, but the waistband and pockets are going to have to come from the other half, so it's not enough to make two from.)
Here's the fabric, after washing and cutting it to width:

It's wound around the traditional kiltmaking tool, a snow shovel handle. (I knew I was saving it for something!)
One thing I'm doing differently from Alan's instructions is that instead of cutting the fabric to length, I've left an inch or inch and half allowance at the waistband. I had plenty of fabric width (60" wide, 24" drop), and it's made a number of steps easier. I scribed a line for the waistband and the fell, and have used those for reference. The lines don't show up well in this pic, but they're there

at this point, I've pinned the outside edges of about half the pleats, in preperation for edge stitching them.
That was a pain, but it turned out okay, and I only had to rip out three or four of them. (Note to self: don't try and put in 1mm stitches!)


I've bar tacked all the pleats in place, but I don't have a picture of that.

[KiltedBrewer]

If your fabric started off 60" wide and your drop is 24" plus 1.5", you'll have a strip 9" wide left in the middle even if you make two kilts. There will be enough to make the waistband and pockets from that middle strip. That's what I did with mine.

David

[Alan H]

What Kilted Brewer said.
The snow shovel handle!!! PERFECT!

[RadioKen]

That's a pretty sweet set-up you've got there in those pictures and I definitely envy you! The place in my house that's got that much space for a set of of that kind isn't even in my house: Its' my driveway.

~Ken

[joeybear]

I should never have opened this thread!! Very nice work! Now I wanna do one for myself

[vorpallemur]

If your fabric started off 60" wide and your drop is 24" plus 1.5", you'll have a strip 9" wide left in the middle even if you make two kilts. There will be enough to make the waistband and pockets from that middle strip. That's what I did with mine.

David

So I do. Well, it's a bit less. The fabric has a fringed selvage, so I've got a 3/4" hem. I think that if I do second, I'll do less rise.

Today, I didn't have a whole lot of time. I sewed in the insides of the pleats, and the tapers. This was very confusing. A couple of diagrams would make it clearer, I think. It doesn't help that I have a bit of a corporation, and so only have about 4 inches of taper.

Tomorrow, I should have time to figure out what I've screwed up, and cut the the waistband. Depends on how much work I get done on Real Life Stuff.

[vorpallemur]

did some work at lunch time:

Here are the tapers sewn in (can't really see it, but trust me)


sample fitting:



Looks almost like a kilt.

[Alan H]

It looks great! Guid on ye!

[Wolfgore]

That is looking very good.
I think you will be very proud to wear that one when it is finished.

[vorpallemur]

I'm finished, more or less. I need to do something to hold down the left edge of the inner apron. And I'd really like to figure out a pocket. I don't like cargo pockets, has anyone put on on the inside of the inner apron?