Question about a box pleat

[Hamo]

This is not an odd way to make a kilt. Virtually all tartan is sold double width and most kilts are "one-offs". In other words, there would be no reason for a kiltmaker to buy 8 yards of double-width tartan unless he/she had to make two kilts. Virtually all the kilts I make have a hidden join in the back for that reason.

There are other ways of fixing a moth hole, and your kiltmaker may have rewoven the hole with threads pulled from the tartan. You can determine whether a pleat was removed by looking for a seam - if there is a seam where the pleat was removed, that's what was done. But honestly? That would require _a lot_ of reconstruction (removing all the canvas, stabilizer, and steeking in the back of the kilt), and they should have charge you a boat load for the alteration!!

Well, it didn't come cheap that's for sure, they did say that they had to take the kilt apart somewhat and that moth hole was about a 1/4" in size. Either way, I'm not unhappy with the job done, I just noticed that the inverted pleat was a lot smaller in width and depth after the alteration and was curious as to whether that's normal to see from an altered kilt depending on what needed to be done.

[Barb T]

I'm curious - is there a new seam where the pleat with the moth hole was? And is the number of pleats the same as before?

[Hamo]

I'm curious - is there a new seam where the pleat with the moth hole was? And is the number of pleats the same as before?

No there's no new seam, the hole was fairly close to the middle seam, within one or two pleats of it, so I presume that they just unpicked the middle seam, cut out however many pleats needed to be deleted to get rid of the whole, sewed it back up and took some tartan from the inverted pleat to create new pleats. That's my theory anyway, here's some pics of my kilt if you would like to take a look.

Looking at the inverted pleat from the inside.

The pleat width is about 3+3/8"

I counted 26 pleats in total.

[Barb T]

For each pleat they took out, they would have needed to take one full sett of material from the inverted pleat to add that pleat back in. Taking out 2 pleats and adding them back in at the inverted pleat would have required two setts. It looks the size of the sett is around 7". There might have been 1 extra sett in the inverted pleat (i.e., an extra 7"), but there couldn't possibly have been an extra 14" in the inverted pleat in the original kilt. So it remains a bit of a mystery!!

But! What matters is that you like the job they did, and they clearly did a fine job!

[Hamo]

For each pleat they took out, they would have needed to take one full sett of material from the inverted pleat to add that pleat back in. Taking out 2 pleats and adding them back in at the inverted pleat would have required two setts. It looks the size of the sett is around 7". There might have been 1 extra sett in the inverted pleat (i.e., an extra 7"), but there couldn't possibly have been an extra 14" in the inverted pleat in the original kilt. So it remains a bit of a mystery!!

But! What matters is that you like the job they did, and they clearly did a fine job!

Yeah it's not too shabby for an Australian made kilt that's for sure
Thanks for having a look at it anyway. I'll be bringing it to the U.S in when I go over to visit my girlfriend in July, hopefully it will impress at the Wisconsin highland games.