May I tell you about one of my favorite kilts? It's a little shop of horrors.

[Alan H]

It's my Lindsay tartan, six yard. I *really* like this kilt. I wear it a lot, it fits well, and it looks good. I've had a lot of compliments on the kilt, from Michael Steinrok to the girls at the MacKinnons kilt booth, and including one from a VERY attractive young lady, easily twenty years my junior, who was quite adamant in her assessment that the kilt looked good and what was I doing after the orchestra concert, tonight?

.....and it will give a dyed-in-the-polyester traditionalist, the horrors! ...

Horror #1...the kilt is not wool

Horror #2...the material is only 11 ounce

Horror #3 ...the kilt has only six yards of material in it

When I was writing the X skirt manual, I bought six yards of 11 ounce wool/polyester blend material from Fraser and Kirkbright. It's light...it's not pure wool. I made "rather" abbreviated skirts for the lasses which used up the two selvedged edges, and when I was done I discovered that I had six yards of 23-inch wide material left over.

So I made a kilt out of it.

Horror #4 ...the kilt is hemmed

Horror #5...the hem is not blind-stitched

.... in fact the edge is serged (it's actually just double zig-zagged) and then turned up the bare minimum, like about 1/4 of an inch and then **machine sewed** down to pull the serged edge to the inside. The machine-sewed hemline shows, about 1/8th of an inch from the bottom of the kilt.



Horror #6...the pleats are not hand-stitched, they're machine stitched and they're TOP-stitched so that the stitching shows. IN fact the ENTIRE kilt is machine-sewn

Horror #7... the pleats are not cut out, inside the fell

Horror #8... there's no steeking

Well, after I serged and hemmed the edge, I folded it up into a shape approximating a kilt and then I top-stitched the pleats in place, working in the taper as I went along. Since there's only 6 yards of fabric, and it's light, there wasn't a mass of bulk lying in the small of my back, so I didn't cut out the pleats. I thought about putting in a steeking line, but didn't do it as they hung just fine, without it.

Oh, this kilt has about 24 pleats with one-inch reveals in it, and it's pleated to the double-black stripe in the tartan.


Horror #7... the reinforcing inside the kilt is not hair canvas, it's non-fusible interfacing

I didn't have any hair canvas left over, but I had a fair bit of fairly heavy-duty non-fusible interfacing from a recent contemporary kilt project, so I reinforced the pleats in the fell, and backed the inside of the over-apron with that instead.

Horror #8...I made an actual load-carrying waistband out of canvas, to reinforce the tartan waistband

Knowing that this kilt would just have one buckle, I decided to make a load-carrying waistband so that the stitching of the pleats would not have to take the load. So I sewed that in. With a machine. The canvas is ORANGE.

Horror #9... the kilt has only one strap-buckle on the right side, not two. It's right at the waistband and it's much too small, more like a ladies kilt skirt buckle.

I used up an extra silver, rectangular buckle I had lying around for the closure on the right side. I used some heavy- duty leather I had from Tandy...dyed it black and sewed it on the over-apron and load-carrying waistband with black carpet thread.

Horror #10...the kilt doesn't have sporran straps...or no straps, instead it's got four belt loops.

That's' right, belt loops. For a BELT.

Horror #11... the under-apron is attached with velcro

The under-apron is attached with velcro on the left side.

Horror #12...the liner, such as it is, is not sewn down.

The "liner" is just a strip of dark blue lightweight cloth that I machine-stitched underneath the tartan waistband. It hangs down and covers the fell and the interfacing. It's not a proper liner at all and in fact I ran out of the blue stuff and had to patch in about 8 inches of some spare lightweight black material I had lying around, so that it was long enough to go all the way around.

There are other HORRORS about this kilt, as well, I just have run out of patience to tell you all about them..

Then again, this is the Lindsay Tartan kilt, that the local convener of the Lindsay tent said was a nice looking kilt and he thought it was great that I had made it and the kilt represented the clan very well. It's a kilt I wear, happily, every week at work, and expect to get 3-4 years of wear out of it.


The Lesson?

You just never know.

[jmercier]

You should name the kilt Audrey II =)

[dfmacliam]

Sounds like you made do with what you had... And done very well with it..

[SFCRick]

Oh the horror, the horrrrorrr

[Paul]

I always disliked the Lindsay tartan since the girls wore Lindsay tartan skirts at school. I can now spot the tartan a mile away!

[kennethrmc]

So, do you have pictures? If you've already posted them, a link to that please? After all this I am dying to see it

[vipermcgee]

So, do you have pictures? If you've already posted them, a link to that please? After all this I am dying to see it

I'll second that. I am particularly attached to the Lindsay tartan. I was first introduced to my Scottish heritage by a Lindsay, and I am a Crawford. Some consider us to be a sept of Clan Lindsay, though we once had our own clan.

Robert

[pdcorlis]

Alan, I for one am thoroughly disgusted...

[be da veva]

NO pics, DIDN'T hapen... you know the rule...



Wait a minute, there's no black in Lindsay....

[Alan H]

NO pics, DIDN'T hapen... you know the rule...



Wait a minute, there's no black in Lindsay....

Yeah, YEAH...Dark blue, then...LOL When I was sewing the thing up I kept grabbing dark-dark red thread. It'd show like crazy, but dark blue almost disappeared. Go figure.