BTW, a 9-inch sett really is pretty big. I'd support Matt's "judicious" edit of the design down to an 7.5 or 8-inch sett. Look at it this way. The drop on most kilts is around 23-25 inches. A nine-inch sett won't be repeated even three times on the apron on a "normal" sized kilt. An 8-inch sett will be repeated three times, or close to it. A seven inch sett would be repeated three times, plus change.

I notice that some regimental kilts have setts this big, so it's not unheard of, it's just not quite what I'm used to seeing. I'm amenable to being correctd, though.

Anyway, here's what I figured out, and this is a very rough estimate, eh?.... let's say our average X Marks dude has a 40 inch waist. OK, so then each apron is approximately 20 inches, right? I mean, adding in taper and stuff it might be a bit more than that, but it's roughly 20 inches. There are two aprons, inner and outer. That's 40 inches of material right there, in the aprons.

Now we have to cover the other 20 inches of our model waistline with pleats. If each pleat is, as Steve suggests, a one-inch pleat, then that's 20 pleats. Yeah, OK, it might be one or two more than that because of taper from hips to waist, but it's close. Taking an average figure of the depth-of-pleat that Steve has calculated, let's go with the figure of four inches per pleat. One inch of the pleat "shows" and the other three are "hidden" in the other pleats.

20 pleats X 4 inches = 80 inches of material.

OK, add the 40 inches for the apron plus the 80 inches for the pleats and you come with 120 inches of material. It actually might be a bit more, but again, this is a rough estimate. That's 3.33 yards of material. So a "four yard kilt" is do-able with Matt's current sett, and 20 pleats on a 40-inch waist will probably look pretty good for a casual kilt.

If you have a 36 inch waist then you'll get two or three fewer pleats. If you have a 44 inch waist you'll get two or three more pleats.

BTW, I have a 40-inch waist.

I am more than happy to be corrected in this by someone who actually knows what they're talking about. I'm just extrapolating from some stuff I've learned from Steve, Barb and Matt. However, I by no means really know this stuff so don't be shy to comment or correct me on this, please.