4 yard vs 8 yard - Part Two

[Alan H]

Pleater makes a good point, and it's a reason NOT to buy tartan with a set less than 4-inches. 4.5 inches is pushing it, IMHO, 5 inches is fine, and 6 is great. If your tartan is less than 4 inches in the sett, you'll be pleating double-setts. That's OK, but you'll need more material.

In My Humble Opinion.... I am no expert, eh?

Anyway, here's the point. If the sett is 6 inches, then let's work out how deep the pleats will be, if you use a 1 inch reveal.

OK, the reveal is 1 inch. That leaves 5 inches for the rest of the pleat. That will be divided in half, right? So that means that the "depth" of the pleat is 2.5 inches. Get out a ruler and look at that. Hmmm... OK. 2.5 inches is a fair bit, eh?

Now how about a 4.5 inch sett? If you reveal 1 inch, that leaves 3.5 inches for the rest of the pleat. Ooooo...so this pleat is only 1.75 inches deep. That's not very deep. It's OK, but I sure wouldn't want to go any less than this. My Holyrood 5 yard from Caledonia kilts is like this. It looks good.

My Stillwater Black Watch has a 4 inch sett. The reveal is about .5 - .6 inches, and the depth of the pleat is about 1.75 inches. It has 33 pleats. The pleat depth works OK, but at least my Stillwater has a double-depth (two seets) deep pleat about every 5th pleat. This adds weight. Basically the way they get away with the small sett (4 inches) is by putting in more pleats, and therefore using small reveals. This makes the pleat depth acceptable.

[Alan H]

We are very used to thinking of our pants as being sized by waist size. However, I am starting to come to the conclusion that honestly, we should start talking about kilts by the HIP MEASUREMENT, not the waist measurement. It's the hip measurement that defines how much material will be in the kilt, not the waist measurement. You taper the kilt from hip to waist, right...not "expand" the kilt from waist to hip. Caledonia kilts told me that their default construction technique was to assume that the difference between the mans waist measurement and hip measurement was six inches. If your measurements varied from that, he wanted you to let him know when ordering the kilt. For me, that works out fine, my waist is 40 and my hips (butt) is 46.

So Panache, for you I will assume that your waist is 34, and your hips (butt) is 40 inches. Your tartan has a 5-inch sett.

OK, so again.....this is a ROUGH ESTIMATE, I'm totally ignoring the 1-2 inch ofset that comes when you calculate "splits" (See Barb's book for information on "splits") If your hips are 40 inches, then half of that measurement will be covered in pleats, right? OK, so if 20 inches is covered with tartan, pleated to the sett, and the sett is 5 inches, then that's 4 setts-worth.

So to cover Panache's bum, we will have the equivalent of 4 setts-width of pleated tartan to make that up.

OK, if we used 1-inch reveals, then that would be 5 pleats per sett, right? It's a 5-inch sett..... But that means there's only 20 pleats across Panache's backside. That's OK, but if I were Panache, I'd want more pleats, so let's do 6 pleats per sett. That makes 24 pleats...very nice. He's a pretty trim guy (I've met him) so I think that will look good. If he wants to go hog-wild he can go for 7 pleats per sett, but that's gonna cost him in labor, and the reveals are going to get pretty small.

6 pleats in a 5-inch sett means that each reveal will be 5/6ths of an inch....these are reasonably narrow pleats. This is gonna look GREAT.

OK, back to calculating how much fabric he needs.....

We decided that 24 pleats 'round his rump would look good, so that means 24 setts-worth of material. 24 setts x 5 inches = 120 inches, or ten feet.

Throw in a yard for the over-apron and a yard for the under-apron, and that's sixteen feet of material. Five yards is 15 feet. So to safe, I'd buy three yards of double-width cloth and know that I had a bit extra. The leftovers can be made into flashes and a bow tie, and he'll almost certainly have enough for a sash or a tartan-front vest for the Flame Haired Celtic Amazon Goddess.


WHAT IF............ What if Panache decided that He wanted even MORE pleats...EIGHT per sett-equivalent across his backside? Let's go hog-wild. That would give him 32 pleats, which is a bluidy lot of freakin' pleats on a 34-inch waist.. The pleat reveal would then be 5/8 of an inch...Stillwater size. I have to admit this looks good, but he will PAY on the labour end for this. Anyway, hhow much fabric does he need?

32 pleats means 32 setts, right? 32 setts X 5 inches = 160 inches.

OK, throw in a yard for the under apron and a yard for the over-apron and you've got a total length of cloth of 160 + 72 = 232 inches.

Team... that's 6.5 yards. Not eight, not seven...6.5 yards.

If he wanted 28 pleats, which would look GREAT he'd be using just about exactly 6 yards of single-width material.

For a kiltmaker to cram eight yards of wool around Panaches butt, he/she'd have to pleat double-setts all over the place for no reason and basically just waste material. And then, to cut the massive bulk of useless material in the small of Panche's back, they CUT IT OUT!!!!

Now, tell me how this makes any sort of sense at all? Put in excess material you don't need...then cut half of it out and PAY FOR THE LABOUR TO DO IT ALL???? It'd cost more in material, it'd cost more in labour, it's just a waste.

OK, it makes sense if you're wearing a kilt in Minnesota in December, eh? But here in California, it's just plain pointless.

Six yard kilts, my friends....six yard kilts.

Or, like Matt says, four yard box kilts in heavy material....

NOTE: Panache, find a vendor for your tartan and just write them, asking what the 13 or 16 ounce kilting wool sett size is. Alternatively you can buy a swatch for a few bucks and measure it yourself, just to be SURE. Matt is entirely right, the exact same tartan can be woven in different sett sizes, depending on the materials makeup and purpose. The stuff in your hat may (in fact, probably is not) the same stuff that you'll buy for kilting.

[Angus]

We are very used to thinking of our pants as being sized by waist size. However, I am starting to come to the conclusion that honestly, we should start talking about kilts by the HIP MEASUREMENT, not the waist measurement. It's the hip measurement that defines how much material will be in the kilt, not the waist measurement. You taper the kilt from hip to waist, right...not "expand" the kilt from waist to hip.

Exactly, that is the important one anyway.

... And then, to cut the massive bulk of useless material in the small of Panche's back, they CUT IT OUT!!!! ....

I was never able to get my head around the idea of CUTTING good 16oz wool fabric up anyway. I even made myself a knife pleat kilt which took an unholy amount of fabric ( the exact amount isnt important) to cover my rump but I just set there for five minutes looking at the scissors in my hand and the fabric waiting to be cut.....I couldnt do it and finally decided to rip it out and make em into two box-pleated kilts. Personally I find the idea of doing this to good $65-80 wool a crime.

Six yard kilts, my friends....six yard kilts.
Or, like Matt says, four yard box kilts in heavy material....

I agree wholeheartedly!!!