Clan Blair Kilt

To any of you who are more interested in pictures of things that I sew than my random musings, this post is for you! I spent this past Christmas with my mom, and I was so excited for Christmas morning, but not to see what I would get. I couldn't wait to give my mom her gift!

On a past visit, Mom had given me five yards of our family tartan that my father had purchased before his death. He had wanted something made out of it for him, but that didn't happen (for multiple reasons), so Mom asked me if I could use it. My sister and I suggested that I make something for Mom out of it, and I could tell she liked that idea better. She doesn't like to ask for anything for herself, but she had mainly offered it to me because she wasn't sure what to do with it. My mom is a fantastic seamstress, but I have delved more into historical sewing, and it's difficult to fit something on yourself anyway.

This is the ancient Blair tartan. The modern is basically the same but darker.

I wanted to make a kilt, which is something I hadn't done before, so I needed to do some research. Women do wear kilts, but they tend to be longer than the knee-length ones you usually see on men, which is exactly what my mom would want anyway. Kilts for men or women would traditionally (think centuries ago, not necessarily current traditions) keep the selvage on the bottom edge, so I decided to make it that way initially because adding a hem would be an easy change to make later if Mom wanted me to, but putting the selvage back on would be impossible. (I didn't just ask her preference because I was trying to surprise her.)

I also had to make some decisions about the pleats. One of those decisions was whether to pleat to sett or to stripe. Pleating to sett means you make the plaid pattern continue to repeat correctly across the pleats. Pleating to stripe means that the horizontal lines will line up properly, but most of the more open space will be hidden in the folds, and a single vertical stripe will run down each pleat.

From kiltsandmore.com

From kiltsandmore.com

The other choice I had to make was about the shape of the pleats. I was used to seeing knife pleats on men's kilts, but apparently box pleats are also quite historical.

I don't know the original source of this one.

I wanted to pleat to sett, which can be achieved with either shape of pleat, but it would be easier for me with box pleats. This decision was made purely on personal preference, but I did find out afterward that pleating to stripe was typically for military kilts, historically, and pleating to sett was for civilian kilts, although either is acceptable now. Some people make that choice based on their family tartan because some tartans don't look as good as others when pleated to stripe.

Anyway, simple box pleats take exactly three times as much fabric as the finished distance you want to cover, but the amount of fabric that needed to get pleated into the back of my mom's kilt was definitely greater than three times one half of her waist measurement, so I chose to make three large box pleats, but the center one is a triple box pleat (three box pleats directly on top of each other), and the two side ones were double box pleats.

triple box pleat pinned in place, but not sewn down yet

double box pleat

This isn't even pressed yet, and look how nicely that plaid repeats across the pleats!

Once I had the pleats sewn in place and nicely steamed into sharp creases, I had to make the waistband. I machine stitched the ends of the waistband closed, but I ended up hand sewing it onto the kilt, carefully lining up the vertical lines in the plaid. That process was a little slow, but totally worth it for a clean, finished look.

When packing for my trip to see Mom, I brought hand sewing supplies to do some of the aforementioned work in the car while my husband drove, a large snap to sew on after fitting it to my mother to hold the inside front in place, grommets and grommet setter, buckles, tiny straps I had partly made, but not finished, and of course, the kilt.

Cue Christmas Day. My mom opened her kilt and loved it, but of course it wasn't done. I talked to Mom about the hem situation, and she opted for a real hem instead of the selvage. I also tried it on her and marked the location for the snap, and I noted that the apron (the flat portion in the front) was a little too wide, so I marked that for alteration as well. Over the next couple of days, I rehemmed the outer edge of the kilt (where it opens in the front), hemmed the bottom, sewed on the snap, and finished the tiny straps and attached them--all by hand because I like the finished look of that better.

I had to adjust my initial placement of the lower strap because it was pulling the fabric strangely. I also had to re-iron the hem to give the bottoms of all the pleats the nice creases again. Once I was satisfied with all of that, I helped Mom with the placement of the kilt pin I got to go with it. (The pin is all symbols of Ireland because my mom loves them, but we don't seem to have Irish heritage.)

I love this lady!

I originally wanted to make leather straps, but that would have made the garment difficult to clean, so I opted for fabric.

Kilt pin from usakilts.com And I promse the plaid lines up here when it's just folded, but it hangs differently when worn.

There are kilt pins that have clan badges on them, but I couldn't find one quickly when I was looking (somewhat last minute) before Christmas. But our clan motto is Amo Probos, which translates to "I love good." I love that. So I will be looking for that. Or possibly just trying to make art based on the family motto. We'll see.

As always, go sow some goodness!

P.S. Here are some bonus silly shots of my dogs at Christmas.

These two really love each other.