Starting on my first true tank

[Tartan Hiker]

Thanks Barb! Yes, I've got a bunch of fabric to work with, and when I told the pipe major that the kilt might have 12+ yards of fabric he didn't bat an eye. The band kilts have a reveal that is 3/4" at the bottom of the fell, tapering to 1/2" at the waist.

Heath, this guy has been with the band off-and-on for many years. He hasn't played with them for a year or so, and in the interim gained a bunch of weight. I hope they don't turn around and ask me to re-build it in a few months (although I'd like to think he'll get rid of the weight some day) but it's a lot easier to take it down than to make it bigger!

[HeathBar]

We'll be waiting to hear how you progress. With that many pleats, you be sewing for days and days and days and days......

You better get going.

[Pleater]

I was thinking.....

The reason one of my kilts ended up with 50 pleats was that the Reverse Kingussie has to have an even number of pleats, and the particular stripe I picked meant that there was 25 pleats worth of fabric available.

After a bit of shuffling I realised that there were two identical stripes within the sett. That meant I could make two pleats from each repeat, and not have to cut off any of the fabric. The pleats are different depths, but it works.

As the kilt under discussion will be pleated to the 'red flanked with blue' and there are two of them in each repeat - could you perhaps do something similar to my option, so as to reduce the amount of fabric in the kilt?

It would not reduce the amount of sewing, but taking out the full depth of one pleat in three or four could make a significant reduction in the weight of the kilt overall.

In a heavyweight fabric twelve plus yards of kilt width is going to be not far off six pounds (!! !!) - even before you add the internal strengthening, lining and buckles....

support mechanism....

wheels....

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Barb T]

The band kilts have a reveal that is 3/4" at the bottom of the fell, tapering to 1/2" at the waist.

Actually, 3/4" at the hips is pretty normal. And it's the size at the _hips_ that you use to figure out how many pleats there'll be, because it's the pleat size at the hips that governs how the back of the kilt will look. Above the bottom of the fell, some kilts have pleats that taper and some don't, depending on the size of the person. What you care about for overall look is what happens from the bottom of the fell to the bottom of the kilt. So, _don't_ plan for this kilt to have 1/2" pleats at the waist. Plan for it to have 3/4" pleats at the hips, and taper the pleats toward the top if you have to. If his hips and waist are the same, the pleats will be 3/4" at the waist as well.

So, assuming his hips and waist are the same (46"), the back of the kilt will be probably 23-24". So, if you had 32 pleats that had a 3/4" reveal, you'd have a back that's 24" across at the hips. That's only 32x7 = 224", or less than 6.5 yards for the back of the kilt. No reason you shouldn't be able to do this with 9 yards.

[Tartan Hiker]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm really pumped about getting started, but I'm not going to do anything until school is officially...June 12.

And he'll probably use braces to help hold things up. He won't be the only one that does so.

[Barb T]

And he'll probably use braces to help hold things up. He won't be the only one that does so.

If he buckles it tightly at the right height, he shouldn't need braces.

[Tartan Hiker]

Here's the first "in progress" shot. About 20 pleats done...only 14 more to go!