Who says machine sewn kilts don't "swish"?

kiltedwolfman · 3rd November 13, 09:55 AM

I was sifting through some pics from our solids photo shoot and these two do a great job of showing just how well you can get a "real" swish with a contemporary kilt. The khaki kilt is made with "rugged" pleats and the brown one with "refined" pleats and took 7 1/2 and 9 1/2 yards of ploy/cotton respectively.
Attachment 15141 Attachment 15142
These were taken as we walked leisurely away from the camera and while we certainly have swagger there was no forced gait to produce swish, just regular old fashioned "Dang we look good" striding.

**Laird_M** · 3rd November 13, 10:26 AM

Yeap, does look good and sure does the 'Highland schwing'.

Learning to use the wife's sewing machine so will be interesting to see if my attempt at a machine sewn will swish and swing as well....

**Mikilt** · 3rd November 13, 11:16 AM

Darn right!

**HarveyH** · 3rd November 13, 03:19 PM

Do people really say they don't swish??

It's not the stitching which makes the difference however the weight and amount of the cloth and the position of the fell line on the body all have an effect on the amount of swish.

New denim is actually quite firm fabric but also usually quite lightweight. It does not easily stretch and is really hard to hand sew because of the nature of the fibres. In addition to being a lighter fabric contemporary kilts tend to have fewer pleats and accordingly less cloth.

Wool fibers are very different and the sort of worsted wool cloth used in most traditional kilts tends to be quite a lot heavier, in addition they tend to be made with a lot more cloth which adds further to the weight (and will therefore have more momentum in its swing) but also wool is easier to sew by hand simply because of the different natures of the fibres.

I don't believe the use of a machine for the sewing will have any great impact on the swing.

My eight yard wool kilts swish more than my 5 yard denim kilt. They are all knife pleated. But the denim is less then half the weight of the wool kilts and so ordinary physics will determine that there is less swing.