Kilts

[Kate XXXXXX]

Thanks for putting down what I just posted. Sheesh.

Er...  Sorry if it came out like that.   


I hadn't read your post.  I've just gone back and done that... I wasn't aware of the details of the pattern, as it probably wouldn't occur to me to use one.  I was thinking of various sites that I've seen for instructions in the past, with waistbands and hems, and chopping the fabric out of the back of the pleats (another no-no for a properly constructed kilt), and seeing my kilt-making guide revolving in his grave at 'the vurrry idea, gurrl!' (as he speared me with a LOOK!).  There are good instructions out there, if you know the right details to look for.  My guide made kilts for a pipe major in The Black Watch, and worked for one of the tailors specializing in military uniforms in Edinburgh. (Looks in head diary: Yikes!  That was 30 years ago!  The way he showed me is actually easier than using a waistband and a hem.  You do need a nice long table you can pad like a giant ironing board, a good iron, lots of steam, and a hefty chunk of resin-free wood!)

  ...And my young cousin Jimmy in his hand-me-down kilt, going off to scout camp, who would rather wear the slightly-too-short-and-the-wrong-tartan (Munro) than 'yon wee skirt' which was the Douglas tartan one with a hem turned up by his mum* so it didn't come down below his sock tops!

*My aunt by marriage, and a superb needlewoman, trained in conservation by the Royal School of Needlework.  She once mended a pair of Napoleon's breeches.  If a hem could be invisible, Rose could do it!  Jimmy, however, was unimpressed by the hem...