Sett Size

[Guinness>water]

I guess I'm the only one who prefers a smaller sett. I was very suprised when my kilt arrived, I had no idea that the pattern was going to be so big. Its not that I dont like it, I just pictured being smaller. I beleive the tartan in my kilt is a 8" sett. While playing around on Scotweb's tartan designer, I have made every tartan with a 6" sett. If and when I every get the money to have Maccormick tartan custom wove, I'll have them make it with a 6" sett repeat.

I have read(I think on Albanach.org) that it was a larger sett size that made kilts go from 4-5 yards to the now standard 8 yards. Please correct me if I'm wrong Matt.

If I understand the above correctly, I wonder what the average (if there was such a thing) sett size was before they began to grow?

[figheadair]

I have read(I think on Albanach.org) that it was a larger sett size that made kilts go from 4-5 yards to the now standard 8 yards. Please correct me if I'm wrong Matt.

That's not the case. The main reason for the increase in the amount of cloth was the introduction of pleating to sett rather than stripe.

If I understand the above correctly, I wonder what the average (if there was such a thing) sett size was before they began to grow?

Historically, i.e. in the c18th there was no such as a standard sett size and probably not in the majority of the C19th either.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I have read(I think on Albanach.org) that it was a larger sett size that made kilts go from 4-5 yards to the now standard 8 yards. Please correct me if I'm wrong Matt.

I don't recall ever making such a statement. I also don't think that the switch over from pleating to stripe to pleating to sett was a contributing factor either. I say this based on the fact that the earliest reference I know of to pleating to set is c. 1900 while the increase of material in the kilt grew from nominally 4 yards to nominally 8 yards over the course of the 19th century.

I honestly think the increase in the amount of cloth used was a fashion trend, and probably facilitated by the fact that as the nineteenth century progressed, the kilt changed from being an everyday garment to a more ceremonial (special occasion) garment.