Royal Stewart 5-yard kilt for cousin, a blow-by-blow

[Alan H]

I'll do pictures for the next kilt, but I thought I'd do a blow-by-blow accounting of how long it takes me to do every step in making a lightweight kilt. Perhaps this will be useful for others.

The plan is to make a nice tartan kilt in a Universal tartan, for a relative who seems "interested" in kilt, but is probably leery of taking the plunge. He tried on a Utilikilt and actually smiled and enjoyed it. His buddy is a Cunningham and seemed pretty keen on getting a Cunningham kilt. He seems pretty interested in the Scottish-American Military Society, since he's ex Navy Reserve. I don't want to spend too much $$ on this, or TOO much time because he may not actually go for it, but I'd like to turn out something that looks reasonably traditional for him. He said he'd be more likely to wear a "Scottish" kilt than a "Contemporary kilt". He's my cousin, and so could wear either the Hall or MacNaughton tartans by "genetic connection" but fat chance I can find either of those for a few bucks a yard. Perhaps if he takes to this kilt-wearing stuff, I'll be making another one for him sometime in the future.

I recently made a young friend a knockaround four-yard kilt in a very lightweight Polyester Viscose, and while I think that will work just fine for him, especially on a hot day, I can't see my cousin wearing either that material or that tartan. So I searched around on ebay. Two weeks of watching scored me item number 380080748368, at $23 including shipping.... which turned out to be just two inches shy of 2.5 yards of an 11 ounce worsted wool tartan in what sure looks like Royal Stewart. There's an extra "bit" off one end which is about 18 inches square that will do for flashes, loops, and buckles. It does not have a kilting selvedge and needs to be hemmed, but it's actually pretty darned nice stuff. It will make a very nice 5 yard kilt. I will pleat it to sett, and hand-sew the pleats since I need practice for the next two kilts, which are for **ME**. YAY! The waistband will be machine-sewn as will the edge of the over-apron/fringe, but I know how to machine-sew that and hide the stitching, so when this is done it will LOOK like a completely hand-sewn, 5-yard kilt.

With that as the starting point, I'll forge on. Hang with me if you like, as I prepare a Christmas present for my cousin. I will go to pains to get pics of the thing on him, at the end. I'm egging his sister, also my cousin, to get him one of the budget Stillwater Kilts sporrans for Christmas, so with that and some Hamilton Dry Goods socks, he'll be all set to go kilted to Christmas Dinner.

[Alan H]

First evening, .75 hour... TOTAL 0.75 hours:

Unpack the bag, drool, wish the material was for a kilt for ME (darnit) and iron it flat.... Figure out that I'm going to have to hem it, so turn up one edge and iron it up, even along both "sort-of-finished" edges....that all took half an hour, maybe call it 45 minutes....

Second evening, 1 hour....TOTAL 1.75 hours

Hand-blind stitch up the hem along about 5 feet of one side. I don't do anything fancy, it's not the "official certified sewers woo-hoo" blind stitch. I just stitch the thing up and try to catch only one or two threads on the outside. Nobody is going to bend down and inspect if my blind stitching is the official certified and authentic approved method. What they WILL notice is if the hem falls out. It won't. Works for me. If it takes me an hour to do five feet, and there's fifteen feet of this stuff, then I'll be spending about 3 hours hand-blind-stitching this hem. Bleah, but if I don't do it by hand, it'll show and I want this kilt to be nicer than that.

Third Morning, 1 hours....TOTAL 2.75 hours

Well, I'm not done with the hemming, but what the heck. I swept the floor and vacuumed it up, then laid the fabric out. I measured up 24 inches from the hem fold-overs and cut out two, "almost 2.5 yard" pieces. I still can't bring myself to rip tartan. Anyway, I then put the two pieces on the sewing machine, and double-zig-zagged the raw edges where the two pieces were to be joined together. Now they won't unravel. I then overlapped them and pinned them every few inches, and ran a line of straight stitching down the overlap to join the pieces. I tossed in a pretty wide line of zig-zag to *really* attach the pieces and make triple sure that nothing ever unravels. I then rolled up the now 14 feet, 8-inch long piece and dropped it in my kilt-sewing box.

[chasem]

I still can't bring myself to rip tartan.

It does seem very frightening the first time. But, as long as it's good quality wool, ripping is the best way to go. Gives you a perfectly straight line (*so* hard to do when cutting with scissors). But I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know

I love these threads though, Alan. Will definitely be keeping up with great interest. It's just fun to see what other "homegrown" kiltmakers are up to.

[sydnie7]

Ditto on the ripping tartan shivers. Couldn't do it the first time -- in fact, my sister had to pick up the scissors and make the cut, couldn't even bring myself to that point but second time around, I gritted my teeth, made a little starter snip, and ripped that sucker like a pro.

As the golfers say -- grip it and rip it!

Of course, AFAIK it only works for wool. Don't try it on PV or any other tartan fabric variants.

Looking forward to the rest of the story (as long as you don't do it Paul Harvey style LOL)

[Carolina Kiltman]

Amen to trying to rip anything other than wool (or cotton for that matter)! I remember, as a wee laddie going with my Mother to a dry goods shop (fabric store in modern parlance), and the clerk would measure off the fabric, cut the selvedge with sicissors, then rip it to the far selvedge, and cut that. It always facinated me.

Second: the real reason they call it blind stitching is that you go blind doing it!

I am looking forward to future installments!

[Mipi]

t!

Of course, AFAIK it only works for wool. Don't try it on PV or any other tartan fabric variants.

I've tried to rip Wool/Poly fabric and it just doesn't rip well.

[Alan H]

Fourth Morning, 1 hour....TOTAL 3.75 hours

Got out the sewing machine, thinking that maybe one of those alternate stitches I never use is a blind-stitch, but none of them were. Durn. Back to blind-stitching the hem by hand. I'm now exactly halfway along and seriously antsy to start pleating.

Response from other cousins, sister to the recipient is somewhat less than overwhelming, got no response to the suggestion that maybe she could spring for a $16 inexpensive sporran from Stillwater Kilts. I think they have no idea how much work this is.

[Alan H]

Fifth evening, 1 hour, and 6th morning, 1.5 hours: TOTAL 6.25 hours

Nothing exciting to report, just that I finished blind stitching the hem, so that makes about 5.5 hours to blind stitch 5 yards of hem.

This morning I laid out the over-apron and pinned it up, and then put everything away to head to work.

I visited with the recipient on Sunday, he knows that the kilt is coming and he remembered to get measured at the end of the afternoon. If he was dreading it, I bet he would have sort of "forgotten" to get measured. So I think he's pretty into the idea. It's a good thing I measured him, too. He wears his pants WAY down on his hips and wears a 38, but his true waist measurement is 42.5. I was guessing it was more like 40. If I'd made a kilt on my "guesstimate", it'd be way too short!

[Alan H]

7th morning, test pleating 1.75 hours TOTAL: 8 hours

i knew I was tight on fabric, having a touch less than five yards, but I'd hoped I could pleat to sett, since I need the practice. Alas, it was not to be. The tartan divides itself up quite nicely into pleats about 1 1/8th inch if I had enough, but I do not. Thus, I'm pleating to stripe. I did a test pleating to "no stripe", but the massive expanse of red bugged me, so I discarded that. I'm pleating to one of the blue/green stripes, with a bit of red showing at one side and small white and yellow stripes down the length. You'll see it when it's done.

I'm in a dilemma. I have enough for 19 pleats if I pleat to stripe. The way I've pleated it now, there's a smallish, but strong red stripe to tone side in the pleat reveal, but the total width of the pleats across the rumpus-side is about 2 inches too big. If I pleat "smaller" and remove the red stripe, the pleats across the rumpus will be about an inch and a half too small. If I pleat "a little bit smaller" then the red stripe gets....in my judgement...."too small to look good".

I might have to go with 18 pleats, which annoys me. If I have material for pleats, I prefer to put them into the kilt, but maybe that ain't gonna work this time. I can adjust the apron width to accomodate, my feeling being that more pleats is better, but there's limits, and this kilt will feel and swing the same with 18 pleats or 19..

Ah, the saga continues.

[Alan H]

I am starting to stress over getting this done by Christmas, and may opt to machine-sew the pleats in desperation.

8th morning, test pleating 1.5 hours TOTAL: 9.5 hours

Much futzing with pleat tapers, then started hand-sewing the first pleat. It didn't go well, so I succumbed to panic attack. Lightly pressed tapered pleats in in the fell a bit to give them a bit of a crease, AND...finished off the right hand edge of the over-apron, including fringe (machine sewn, but invisible from the outside.)