Sorry to be joining this thread late; my weekends are "unplugged" from the internet.

Congratulations, JohnH, on your discovery. You described perfectly the frustrations of the "archeological" digging it took to recover the techniques of this pleating style. The Commonwealth militaries appear to be rapidly shrinking their kilted forces, and losing the knowledge base of their kiltmakers. Outside the militaries, it's almost as if the guild system, with its protected trade knowledge, is still at work for the relatively few kiltmakers who can make this pleating style. Thank goodness for reverse engineering and old kilts as examples.

Of course, none of these techniques would make any sense unless built on top of the foundation of kiltmaking as taught bt Elsie and documented by Barb.

Quote Originally Posted by JohnH View Post
** Hmmm….. the regiment was formed in early 1961, by amalgamating the Seaforth Highlanders with the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and Elsie apprenticed with Thomas Gordon...
In my conversations with Elsie, she told me she must have learned this style as a young lass, but hadn't made one for many decades and couldn't remember the differences. Soon after this time I had worked out everything but the pleat basting. How she managed to remember it I don't know, but in a later telephone call she described the basting step with the clarity necessary to penetrate my thick skull. Your pic of the ex-MOD kilt shows well the pleat basting.

Again, congratulations - and welcome to the ranks of the hopelessly addicted.

w2f