Thanks Barb. Those are pretty!

I'm with Anne: in lower yardage, the tartan will probably tell us what to do. Planning a 4-yard box pleat in MacGregor, I tried pinning it up to white stripes & the red blocks. I thought it would have been pretty fiddly to make either one work. An extra yard of fabric could give a lot more flexibility...





For this one, still in progress, I ended by alternating:
TestPleatAlt by Ken, on Flickr