A question for you folks that DIY

[Alan H]

Ok...I have read a lot, looked at diagrams a lot, and have finally gone out and bought the fabric...5 1/2 yards of poly cotton in a nice grey-green fabric that I think will work really well with the tweed jacket that I'm converting.
I'm going to make a more or less traditional cut kilt with a knife pleat and I think I have gotten it figured out except for one thing (one thing for now that is).
And that is, is there some standard for the width of the under apron pleat?
It doesn't look like it would matter much, but I thought I would ask before diving in.
My apron will be 20 1/2 wide (since my hips are 41) and my pleats will be about one inch showing with the under pleat about 4 inches total width. Would this be about right for the under pleat? Oops. I guess that's two questions isn't it?
Thanks

I added the "bold" for my own emphasis in your post....

Having made a few kilts, now, and having 6 of them I can tell you that there is no law that determines how deep the pleat that lies under the over-apron should be. That said, I'd recommend a minimum of four inches. That means you'll be using up eight inches of cloth, right? Four inches one way/the fold/four inches back.....and that's a real MINIMUM. Honestly, I'd go six inches deep, which means twelve inches of cloth disappear into that pleat.

Your hips are 41 inches , OK? So roughly you'll be covering half of that, or 21 inches with pleats.

Let's say that each pleat show a 1-inch reveal. Therefore you will have 21 pleats, right?

If you make your pleats 2 inches deep (a minimum) then the total amount of cloth needed to make a whole pleat is:

2 inches in (then the inner fold)
2 inches back
1 inch reveal

Total: 5 inches

You're going to make 21 of these right? OK so 21 x 5 = 105 inches of material that's going to disappear into the pleats.

Figure on two "pleat equivalents" for the reverse pleat on the right side...10 inches.

Let's say 12 inches for the under-apron pleat. This means the under-apron pleat will be 6 inches deep. My two Stillwaters have 6-inch deep under-apron pleats.

And 25 inches for the under apron
25 inches for the over apron (to be safe)

Add all that up and you get 177 inches of material going into your kilt. My caluclator tells me that's about 4.9 yards of cloth....single-width.

Here's a suggestion...make those pleats 'roound your bum, deeper. Make them 2.5, maybe even 3 inches deep with a 1-inch reveal. That will push your kilt up to the 6-yard range.

BTW, if you pleat to the stripe in a traditional kilt, and your reveal is 1 inch and your pleat depth is 2 inches, then the sett size is 5 inches, right? That's an OK, but a bit-smallish tartan. My MacNaughton poly-vis kilt is made with a sett size of 4.5 inches, and that's barely acceptable, in my humble opinion.

A 6-inch sett, which is very typical, if pleated to the stripe with a 1 inch reveal, will result in 2.5 inch deep pleats. The X-Marks tartan sett as woven by Fraser and Kirkbright is right around 6 inches.

A 7 inch sett, which is starting to get biggish, if pleated to the stripe with a 1 inch reveal will result in 3 inch deep pleats.

I you don't HAVE a sett because you're using plain-color or random-pattern cloth, why not make your pleats a little bit deeper and get a bit more "swing" to the kilt?