altering a kilt: making the waist up to 10" smaller?

[Barb T]

Let me start with a comment that is not strictly pertinent to your situation, in case other readers are confused. For any kilt made by traditional methods, the pleats _are_ cut out in the fell, and you can't just undo the apron and underapron, take out a few pleats, and remake the apron and underapron out of the tartan that used to be in the pleats. You'd have to take out the pleats, cut out the "cut out" part, and join the apron and underapron back onto the pleats. This would actually be more work than making a kilt from scratch, and any good kiltmaker would charge you an arm and a leg to do it.

My advice to most people under these circumstances is to sell the kilt and use what you got from selling it to buy a new kilt that fits properly.

OK - now specifically to your question. You are making the kilt yourself. Should you not cut out the first couple pleats on each side? Sure, you can do that. But, if you sold the kilt, you could likely get more for the kilt than it would cost you to buy new tartan, and it would take a lot less time to just make yourself a new kilt. And the other drawback is that you're likely to change proportions as well, so the waist-hip differential is likely to change if you lose that much weight. So, my advice would be to make the kilt now, wear it, sell it when you lose weight, and use the proceeds to buy a new length of tartan.