contemporary box pleat kilt: an ongoing thread

[Alan H]

OK Jason firmly said he wanted a "narrow apron kilt" after looking over our attendant traditionalls and the two Utilikilts in the crowd. OK, then, narrow apron it shall be. (I didn't give Dan a choice, because I wanted to make them both, basically the same.) Jasons measurements are: waist:33, rump: 40, Drop: 23....... Dans measurement are waist: 43, rump: 45, Drop 24

Neither has much of what I'd call a "beer gut", in fact Jason is pretty trim, so I decided not to worry about "slope". I gave Dan a hard time about not having a butt...what's this with his butt measurement only 2 inches bigger than his gut?

Anyway, we did all this at the last beer night, so I'm not gonna count the measurement in the time allotment.

Last night I sat down and thought about what I could/would make for these guys. I wanted something contemporary with a narrow apron and pleats that go most of the way around. I thought over the options, and strongly considered doing what Utilikilt does, meaning pleats from both sides of the front of the wearer point backwards, and meet in a box pleat at the back. I think Robert at R Kilts does this, too.

Well, I don't want to copy anybody's design, so I finally decided not to do that. I'd just seen way2fractious's (bluidy gorgeous) box pleated kilt at beer/kilt night, and I thought about that. Would a box pleat be something reasonably easy to stitch up that would be quickly adaptable to various sizes? The answer was yes. By picking a standard size for the pleats (3 inches) being careful about how much material folded UNDER the pleats so that I could work in a correct taper, I had flexibility. I could accomodate both Dan and Jasons sizes by A.) varying the number of box pleats, B.) varying the taper and C.) changing the width of the apron by an inch or two.... but yet stay with basically the same design for both kilts. OK, then box pleat it was.

I laid out with care the fabric stitch lines. I'm going to prepare a long length of fabric, and then instead of pleat-and-stitch, I'm going to 1) stitch in the velcro that goes on the over-apron so it can't be seen. B.) hem over the right hand edge of the over-apron and then C.) just work my way down the length of fabric, stitching down where the edges of the pleats are GOING to be. Yah, yah, I planned this very carefully, we'll see if I got it right. After it's all stitched, then D.) I fold it up, pin in the tapers, and E.) stitch the pleats down. This means that the fell will be double-stitched, not a bad thing at all. Finally, I will sew the velcro on the inner apron, and voila...Le Kilt, minus little details like belt loops and stuff. BTW, Jasons over-apron is 10 inches wide, Dans is 12 inches wide, and neither have will have any A-shaping to them, they'll be completely straight.

I dunno if this is going to need a little waistband or not, we'll see when we get there.

Turns out that by my calculations, these kilts will take about 3.2 yards of material for Jason and 3.5 for Dan, so I have enough to work with, here. I might even have enough for cargo pockets, or something, though I'm not keen on cargo pockets, personally. Maybe I will build in slash pockets....then again, maybe I'll tell the guys to go to the surplus store and buy a cheap fanny pack. We'll see.

OK, all the design work and adding up numbers and drawing the pleats and figuring out exactly where to stitch etc. etc...alll that thinking took me an hour and 45 minutes.

Two kilts Design: 1.75 hours.