Do folks notice or not?

[Big and Bashful]

Sore thumb? Nah!

I don't often wear the kilt, when I put the kilt on with the rest of the formal outfit it is the only time I feel like I actually look good. The only other kit I remember which made me feel that way was during my brief (4 month) Naval career, where when wearing "Number 1's) as in the dress uniform, as in the best most formal rig, not a dress! I just felt good and a bit superior to the general throng.
I like putting on the whole kilt outfit but since I bought it, everytime there was a family wedding or something I have been unable to attend for other reasons, now everyone who is likely to has married, I suppose I will have to wait for an excuse to put the formal rig on, next years Burn's night probably.
Kilt plus polo shirt will probably appear at a Highland games or two this year, pity the thing is a 12 yard kilt because it weighs a ton!

[Couya]

12-yard kilt?
That's a lot of cloth. I prefer the so-called casual kilts with 4-5 yards; quite enough for me. Lower price, less weight, but just as much colour. I do not know why they use so much cloth to make a kilt. Tradition? It seems unlikely that the poor highlanders could afford such quantities, and they are the ones responsible for the kilt.

Martin

[Big and Bashful]

12-yard kilt?
That's a lot of cloth. I prefer the so-called casual kilts with 4-5 yards; quite enough for me. Lower price, less weight, but just as much colour. I do not know why they use so much cloth to make a kilt. Tradition? It seems unlikely that the poor highlanders could afford such quantities, and they are the ones responsible for the kilt.

Martin

When I went to the kiltmonger to buy a new kilt I expected to go for a 9 yarder, they recommended the 12 yards due to my corpulent shape, so that it would have plenty of fabric to move properly. I must admit it looks good but it is a bit heavy for casual use.

[r.m.anderson]

B & B -
I thought with that much material that your kilt would be one of those with double box pleats.
There is a fine gentleman over at the BOTK forum whose wife makes these: Lady Chrystel
Website/LINK:

http://www.LadyChrystel.com

Photo of an outstanding double box pleated ensemble:

http://www.kiltsrock.com/forum/topic/15 ... ouble-box/

Oh to have one of these to wear to my own funeral ! LOL !

[Big and Bashful]

Interesting, but no, it isn't box pleats, I suppose I could post a photo, however, it is just a kilt, Ross traditional hunting tartan, which goes well with my sealskin sporran and stuff.
I did think about going for a box pleated kilt, but was told that although a bit more comfortable to sit in, a box pleated kilt doesn't move as well as ordinary pleats. Is that true?

[pleated]

B & B -
I thought with that much material that your kilt would be one of those with double box pleats.
There is a fine gentleman over at the BOTK forum whose wife makes these: Lady Chrystel
Website/LINK:

http://www.LadyChrystel.com

That link didn't work for me, but this one seems to be ok-
http://www.lady-chrystel-kilts.com/

[skirted_in_SF]

Martin
(*apologies to my British friends. Blame the spelling on th automatic corrector on my made-in-China computer.)

Look around in your set up to change to British English.
In Win7: Start>>Control Panel>>User Accounts>>Appearance and Personalization

[Couya]

If you think it is that easy, Skirted in SF...
Since I write more often in French and Spanish than in English, I think even my Mac might feel a bit challenged. It thinks it's clever, changing, for example "men's skirt" into "men's shirt" or "men's shorts". What stick-in-the-mud programmers they must have in California (or Beijing).

I sometimes use an ipad, which, provided I tell it which language I am going to use, does a pretty good job at choosing the right spellings, but even there, I'm not sure that it knows the difference between British and Northamerican.

Martin

[Kilted_John]

If you think it is that easy, Skirted in SF...
Since I write more often in French and Spanish than in English, I think even my Mac might feel a bit challenged. It thinks it's clever, changing, for example "men's skirt" into "men's shirt" or "men's shorts". What stick-in-the-mud programmers they must have in California (or Beijing).

I sometimes use an ipad, which, provided I tell it which language I am going to use, does a pretty good job at choosing the right spellings, but even there, I'm not sure that it knows the difference between British and Northamerican.

Martin

Martin:

Go to System Preferences -> Keyboard. Click on the check box that says show Keyboard Viewer & Character Viewer in menubar. Then, go to Language & Text. Choose Input Sources. Choose whichever languages you want to use. Click the red button to close System Preferences. You'll see whichever country's language is in use by looking next to the clock in the menubar. That country's flag will be shown.

With respect to my comment about sticking out like a very sore thumb, here in the states, that's what has happened to me. If I wear one of my tartan kilts, yes, the compliments become very common, but so do the "Are you Scottish?" and "Do you play the bagpipes?" questions. if I wear any kind of skirt that's not tartan and pleated in the back, the questions do tend to disappear for the most part.

-J

[Couya]

Thank you, John, but I prefer to stuck to one keyboard layout. Whenever I have been confronted with American or Spanish ones, either, all my "a"s come out as "q"s and so on (q/z, m/n, ... At least with the ipad the virtual keyboard changes according to the language you choose, but trying to juggle with a real keyboard that gives you letters different from the ones on the keys is very unsettling ); or all my reflexes go haywire and I have to go back to one-finger typing, eyes on keyboard.

I knew about keyboard swapping within systems prefs, but did to know that that also altered the dictionary settings.
I have used AZERTY most of my life and prefer to keep to it. I'm too old to change now anyway.

Please excuse my going off topic !

Martin

[Tor]

I'm not sure of the details on a mac, but I believe it is quite possible to set language settings fully independently from the keyboard layout. Then again, I've seen macs tend to want to think they know what you want better than you do.

[derail3]

Last Monday was a very nice day near my home just east of San Francisco CA. Temperature of 72F/22C so decided to wear my Utilikilt with long sleeve shirt and work boots. My wife and I rode our folding bikes to the subway train (Bart) and rode to Rockridge to have Breakfest with my stepson. Very nice time no long stares, or funny looks except on the way home on the bikes. We were using the bike path. Wife was wearing caprie pants (the ones that are only calf length) and I was wearing my Utilikilt. A guy passed us on another bike in spandex bike outfit and remarks. "I guess we know who wears the pants in your family". I did not respond, was not sure what if anything to say. By the way we both have Brompton folding bikes. They have a low step over and work great with skirts and kilts.

[Darryl]

Got two kilts from Stillwater Kilts: a thrifty kilt with velcro fastening in a 'Pride of Scotland' tartan and a low-end solid-black with buckle fasteners. Also a basic sporrant with chain and a belt. Wore the thrifty kilt all day today, worked fine. Didn't really notice any difference in who noticed and/or reacted at all. Though about 5 ladies asked me what the occasion was. I replied that I had just gotten it so I had to wear it.

Wore black fleece-lined leggings with black combat boots; white dress shirt and a fleece-lined jacket with hoodie. Today's high was 20 F. This morning was -10 F.

Plan to get a new iron and board anyway, which will help me touch up the pleats. I may try just a dab of spray-on starch if they still make it. We shall see. For now I just laid it flat and tweaked the pleats.

[r.m.anderson]

Plan to get a new iron and board anyway, which will help me touch up the pleats. I may try just a dab of spray-on starch if they still make it. We shall see. For now I just laid it flat and tweaked the pleats.

Aye be careful with that iron (ironing board OK) on kilted material.
Some materials do not like the heat of the iron.
Turn the kilt inside out and experiment with that to start.
That spray on starch experiment on the inside of the kilt
Use a lot of steam if the iron has that feature.
Use a towel between the iron and the fabric.
No direct heat from the iron on the kilt.
A degree of muscle power helps flatten/sharpen the edge of the pleat.
Fortunately I found out the hard way with a cheap kilt.
What happened the iron took the sheen off the surface (too much heat).
In certain lighting the spot in question loses its luster.
So don't fool around with an expensive 8 yard dress kilt leave that to the pros.

Nothing quite like the look of a razor sharp pleated edge.

[Darryl]

Plan to get a new iron and board anyway, which will help me touch up the pleats. I may try just a dab of spray-on starch if they still make it. We shall see. For now I just laid it flat and tweaked the pleats.

Aye be careful with that iron (ironing board OK) on kilted material.
Some materials do not like the heat of the iron.
...
Nothing quite like the look of a razor sharp pleated edge.

Thanks for the info. There's some kind of teflon heat shield for the iron a lady friend uses and I was going to give that a try, but I plan to do a lot of Googling as due diligence first.

Well, found a good link on XmarksTheScot: http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f139 ... ilt-62101/

Got a Stillwater Thrifty Kilt and an Economy Kilt. Now that I've seen how the sizing actually fits and such I plan on acquiring a Standard Kilt. After I have a few so I can possibly wear one every day for a week or two, and do that for a while. Then I will look at getting a Wool Heavyweight Kilt from them.

Venues: possibly once in a while, work; church, out-and-about, Renaissance Fairs, Highland Games and so on.

And if I can get USMC-style knife-edge pleats without hurting the material, even better. (And no...I'm Navy.)