My children all play with a local youth Pipe Band. This summer we are travelling to Sctoland for a band trip that includes some competitions and performances. My son has had a number of band kilts throughtout his 4 years in the band, and all have been in decent shape, so all that has been needed as been basic repairs such as moving a buckle an inch or so, repairing a few stitches at the bottom of the pleat, or adding a belt loop. For our Scotland trip, my daughters were issued their band kilts. They will be dancing in George Square for Piping Live in Glasgow in August with the Pipe Band, so needed kilts.
The first kilt required a couple of pleats to be repaired, just a few stitches at the bottom to secure stitches that came out. And the buckles moved back to their original location.
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Buckles moved back to original location.
All pleats stitched to the hip line. |
But sometimes when issued a band kilt a it is a little worse for wear! This kilt has probably been used for over 20 years (or possibly 30 years, as there are a few floating around from years ago). This kilt had been repaired in the past -- flipping the apron and under-apron, along with weaving together a tear in the "new" under-apron. And this kilt was made smaller to fit a 24" waist. This was done by moving the buckle and leather strap so the kilt wrapped nearly twice around her. BUT the biggest problem with this kilt, were the a number of pleats at the centre of the kilt that had completely worn out! As a seamstress, and kilt maker, I found this hard to put my child in. So asked if I could pull the kilt apart and remove the damaged pleats.
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Damaged Pleats. Wool completely frayed along 3 or more pleats.
The fell (or stitched) area also damaged. |
Repairing.... first required pulling a section out of the kilt. First task was pulling the stitching from the pleats, the lining, the interfacing, the straps, 3 buckles, waistband, and hem.... I only undid the hem, lining, and interfacing in the required area, and tried very hard not to remove the 3rd buckle, but it came off....
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Pinned together, ready to restitch the fell.
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Fell stitched, interfacing, lining and waistband repaired.
Fell stitches repaired on a number of other pleats. |
After all the stitching, the buckles needed to be placed. To get a good fit, it is best to sew the waist buckles, and then fit the hip buckle at a separate fitting.
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Kilt repaired. Fitting for 3rd buckle placement.
Yes it still needs pressing! |
This kilt is pressed and ready for her first band event! All told this repair took between 6 to 8 hours, with most done while sitting at highland dance class or drumming lessons.
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| Repaired Kilt Back |
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| Repaired Kilt Front |
For an overview of kilt making see Kilt Making.
I imported an image of the fabric into Embird and using the Studio Plugin I created this snowman. I had a few difficulties when I embroidered him as some fabric got caught on the needle and tore.... wondering what I could do to solve my problem, I decided he needed to be on the snowbank to hid the small holes below the right foot....
