Quote Originally Posted by The Wizard of BC View Post
If your Waist size is actually 50" measured at your natural waist (and not your pants size) Then your Hips will be some where around 56" -58" and you are right on the border between an 8 yard and a 9 yard Kilt.
Actually, I disagree with Steve. I start to consider a 9 yard kilt when the hips are more than 44". If your hips are more than 50", most tartans (in 16 oz) have a big enough sett (more than 6-7") that you really can't make it with 8 yards.

Well, actually, you _could_, but here's the issue. With a typical sett for a 16 oz tartan, you're likely to be able to get somewhere around 25-27 pleats out of an 8 yard length for someone with hips in the 40-44" range. If the hips are more like 50-56", you need to reserve more for the apron and underapron, and you lose a few setts, so you'd have fewer pleats. Say you had 23 pleats. If the back were 28" across at the hips, each pleat would be more than an inch and a quarter across. If you're OK with that, you can get away with 8 yards. But I don't like pleats that big. By adding an additional yard to the kilt, you could get 4 additional pleats if the sett were 7-8", and the pleats would look more normal in size.

You can also get more pleats into a kilt if you pleat to the stripe than to the sett, so, if I have a limited amount of yardage for a kilt, I'll typically suggest pleating to the stripe. So, that's a solution as well.

So, when I said above that I start to consider a 9 yard kilt at 44" hips, I do a little quick figuring depending on the sett size and whether someone wants the kilt pleated to the sett or the stripe.