Number vs. size of pleats

**TheKiltedCoder** · 18th September 08, 09:33 PM

Hi, All,

I'm in the process of sewing a knife-pleated kilt a la Barb's book. As I've gone through and done the math and marked things out, I've ended out with some oddish numbers for pleats that I thought I'd run past someone as a sanity check.

At this point, I'm looking at a total of 18" of pleats. ScotWeb gave me 8 metres of cloth, which, when you put everything together, gives a total of 33 pleats available.

Now, doing the math on this indicates that my pleat size at the waist will need to be 17/32", and 21/32" at the hips.

Do these sizes strike everyone as okay? I'm starting to think that I may want to knock out 4 or 5 pleats, to come up to something approaching 3/4" at the waist.

So, what does everyone else think? Is 17/32" too small a reveal for a knife pleat, or do I need to make things a bit bigger?

Thanks,

Brian

**The Wizard of BC** · 18th September 08, 10:10 PM

The size of the pleat at the waist is far less important than the size of the pleat at the hip.

For the best looking kilt the pleat width at the hip should be somewhere between 1/2" and 1". You can go smaller and or larger depending on the Tartan, the size of the person and the amount of fabric you have, but 1/2" to 1" is a good starting point.

Just because you have 8 meters of fabric does not mean you must use every single inch of it. Design your kilt for the best look by doing up a couple of samples. Pin some pleats at a small size and then at a larger size and see which you like best.

I have much the same problem as you. I like number to four decimal places. So I keep reminding myself.

It's an art, not a science!!!!!!!

**Barb T** · 19th September 08, 05:26 AM

17/32 is scarcely more than 1/2" at the waist. If you are making this for a guy (and not a female dancer, for example), I think you'll find that 1/2" at the waist is too small and you won't like the look of it. And 5/8" at the hips is, to my taste, too small as well. I try to aim for 3/4" or even a little more at the hips.

To be honest, I don't think I've ever put 33 pleats into a kilt. Most kilting tartan has big enough setts that 8 yards just doesn't have enough repeats for an average-sized guy to have more than 23-29 pleats in his kilt. I just made one with 31 pleats, but the person has 54" hips, and I needed more than 25" of pleats across the back and 9 yards of tartan (and it wasn't a particularly large sett).

Here, for example, is a kilt with 27 pleats for a man with 41" hips and a 36" waist. That makes the pleats a bit less than 5/8" at the waist and about 3/4" at the hips. I can't imagine what it would look like if I had had enough tartan to stuff another 6 pleats into this kilt and the pleats were smaller! It would just look odd. And your hips are a lot smaller!

So, personally, I would cut the # of pleats down.

BTW - what is the # of inches in the sett, and what's the weight of the tartan?

Oh - and the reason I said "and not for a female" above is that it's very common for the waist-hip differential to be large enough in a woman's kilt that the pleats at the waist are around 1/2" even though the pleats at the hips are over 3/4" or even over an inch. Can't be helped.

Also - I assume from the 18" that you need for the pleats that your hip measurement is about 35-36"?

**meinfs** · 19th September 08, 11:39 AM

You (and I) have got some great advice from our experts. I don't think I can do better but here is my two cents.

Here's my secret:
One personal approach that I take -- for example, the one I used on my Stewart Gray kilt -- was to find a natural line (two lines) on the tartan to use as the edges of the pleat on both sides (or rather both edges) of the major stripe that I want to pleat it to. As long as this gives a pleat size of 1/2" to 1", and has the aesthetic look that you desire, then it'll be fine. [Needless to say, this approach is limited by the patterns in the tartan and the weight of the tartan fabric. We know that heavier version of the same tartan fabric will tend to have bigger setts and larger distances between lines; the lighter version of the same tartan will have smaller setts and closer lines).

[For me, it makes it much easier to see where I'm stitching (- along a line in the fabric).]

Having said that, you can then back-calculate the number of pleats. Instead of deciding at the start how many pleats you want, start with what pleat size you want. This also means that your pre-determined value of 18" of pleats *may* change. Like W_BC said, it's an art; so it doesn't have to be exactly 18" (it was determined subjectively to begin with anyway). And the tartan will have the final say! That is, it depends on the lines available in the tartan. It may not work as easily for some tartans.

So, now you have the pleat size that you like (this is at the hips!!), calculate the number of pleats that will fill your 18" (give or take). Then calculate the taper (per The Art of Kiltmaking).

Hope this helps.

**herminator** · 19th September 08, 11:47 AM

What tartan is that??

Looks great!!

**Carolina Kiltman** · 19th September 08, 06:45 PM

Originally Posted by TheKiltedCoder

Hi, All,

I'm in the process of sewing a knife-pleated kilt a la Barb's book. As I've gone through and done the math and marked things out, I've ended out with some oddish numbers for pleats that I thought I'd run past someone as a sanity check.

At this point, I'm looking at a total of 18" of pleats. ScotWeb gave me 8 metres of cloth, which, when you put everything together, gives a total of 33 pleats available.

Now, doing the math on this indicates that my pleat size at the waist will need to be 17/32", and 21/32" at the hips.

Do these sizes strike everyone as okay? I'm starting to think that I may want to knock out 4 or 5 pleats, to come up to something approaching 3/4" at the waist.

So, what does everyone else think? Is 17/32" too small a reveal for a knife pleat, or do I need to make things a bit bigger?

Thanks,

Brian

21/32" is 1/32" over 5/8th, which makes it just a bit (3/32") under 3/4". I would go with that. Don't worry about the width at the waist. It is at the hips that counts. When I make a pleated skirt for my wife, there is about 11"-12" difference between hips and waist. (As she says, she had an hour-glass figure, but the sand shifted!)

**TheKiltedCoder** · 19th September 08, 07:15 PM

Originally Posted by Barb T.

So, personally, I would cut the # of pleats down.

BTW - what is the # of inches in the sett, and what's the weight of the tartan?

Also - I assume from the 18" that you need for the pleats that your hip measurement is about 35-36"?

Hi, Barb,

Thanks for answering! This kilt is for me, with a 38 inch waist and 42 inch hips. Here are the calculations that I'd made. If anything isn't right (or is right but... odd.) please let me know. I'd welcome suggestions.

inches apron pleats
waist 38 20 18
hips 42 21 21

fell 7 1/4"

I'm a short, stocky guy.

The original tartan was 4 metres of double-width, giving me a bit less than 8 metres to work with. The sett is right at 6 1/2". It's 16 oz. wool from ScotWeb.

What it boils down to, at this point, is that I believe I'm going to make a mistake if I jump up and down on this poor kilt and try to jam every inch of that tartan into it. Assuming I go to a 1" reveal at the hips (with the current split), that would mean getting rid of 12 pleats, or about 1 yard of material. Since I'm working with two tartan halves at this point, I'd assume that I'd want to take 6 setts off of the end of the left half of the tartan, and 6 setts off of the beginning half of the right tartan. Does that sound right?

And, for those that know better and have done the math before, do the splits look right?

Thanks again for the comments, everyone!

Brian

**Alan H** · 19th September 08, 07:33 PM

I wrote a ginormous lecture about all this on the General Kilt Talk subforum last week.

**TheKiltedCoder** · 20th September 08, 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by Alan H

I wrote a ginormous lecture about all this on the General Kilt Talk subforum last week.

Thanks, Alan! I'll go try to dig it up.

Brian

**Pleater** · 20th September 08, 02:46 PM

If you have fabric to spare it means that you can place the repeat of the pattern precisely where you want it on the aprons - both of them, and put the join of the fabric exactly where you want it too.

Do consider what is going on at the other end of the length of fabric before deciding just how much you are going to remove.

I make rather large under apron pleats on my kilts - first as I was reducing the size and did not want to cut the fabric, but I found that they are a good thing to have, so if you have spare fabric losing some in under apron pleats would be advisable.

For the size of the pleats - maybe if you try pinning in several pleats at the size you propose, then some just a little larger, and a little larger still you will be able to see what effect adding in that little extra will have on the apperance of the kilt.

Notice on the photo of the kilt Barb T posted how there are apparent breaks in the horizontal lines of colour, which might not be there if the pleats were smaller. That is the sort of thing that makes the colours interact when the pleats are in motion - makes them fizz.

Anne the Pleater