How to Sew a School Kilt
Does your school have uniforms? Are they overpriced? Do you hate the administration and want to do everything in your power to spite them? If so, this tutorial is for you. With just a sewing machine, fabric, and hours of painstaking work, you too can deceive your teachers into thinking you actually spent $68 $95 on a damn skirt.
Yes, they seriously raised the price by nearly $30 since I started writing this tutorial. Fabric price is the same though...
What You'll Need
Okay, I lied. You need more than just fabric and a sewing machine to make this. Here is a list:
- Sewing machine
- Scissors
- Iron and ironing board
- Measuring tape
- Fabric chalk
- About 2.5 metres of fabric (depending on size; see step 1 before buying)
- Matching thread
- 2 matching 1/2" buttons
- Fusible interfacing (optional but recommended; length needed is the waistband length in step 1)
Having a real version of your school’s kilt on hand would also be helpful for comparison. You could definitely do it without it, but it might not look exactly the same. Your best bet is to find one secondhand or borrow one from a friend. Don’t buy one from the school, though, you can’t let them win.
Choosing Fabric
When it comes to plaid, many schools use official tartan patterns for their kilts. If you don’t know what your school uses, try looking up “[insert colours here] tartan” and see what comes up. If you can’t find one even similar to your kilt, it’s probably not a real tartan. If it’s a simple check, you might be able to find a gingham that matches, but if it’s not, you’re probably screwed. You might be able to replicate the plaid on some type of online tartan generator then upload the resulting image to Spoonflower, but I haven’t tested this. Worst case scenario, just get something in similar colours; some girl at my school wore a kilt from a completely different school for like 2 years and no one noticed, so you’ll probably be fine.
Most kilts use fabric made of either wool or polyviscose (combination of polyester and viscose/rayon). That doesn’t matter too much, though, as long as the fabric looks like the real thing. It will most likely have to be yarn dyed fabric (where the thread is dyed before weaving), which is why I doubt Spoonflower would work right: the patterns are printed on after.
Instructions
Step 1: Measuring
You’re going to measure the following things:
Waist Circumference – Measure around your waist at the height you want your kilt to sit.
Waistband Height – The distance from the top of the waistband to the bottom of the waistband.
Apron Width – The width of the non-pleated part at the front.
Skirt Length – How long you want your kilt to be (measured from the height you measured your waist circumference at)
Seam Allowance – Whatever you want, but I recommend 0.5 inches. This shit frays like crazy.
Now time to do math! Just kidding, it’s so stupidly complicated that I figured it out for you and all you have to do is plug your measurements into this handy dandy Javascript tool thing:
Waistband Width: |
You now have the dimensions for the two rectangles you're going to cut from your fabric: one for the waistband and one for the main skirt piece. Then you just need to figure out how to arrange it on the fabric so you can buy the least amount possible. It will have to be at least as long as your skirt width. I think it’s worth noting now that you will probably be able to make at least two kilts out of the fabric. I was able to make three, though I ended up having to use the selvage in the last one which is not good practice. Here's how I arranged mine:
Now you just need to buy your fabric.
Step 2: Cutting the Fabric
Once you have your fabric, you’re going to cut out your skirt pieces. Find somewhere to spread out the fabric, probably the floor. Try not to stretch it. Follow whatever arrangement you figured out earlier, measure out your fabric, mark it with the fabric chalk, and cut it. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.
Step 3: Hem the Skirt
Next you’re going to hem the skirt piece. Because the fabric frays so much, you’re going to fold the seams over twice when you hem them so the rough edges are enclosed. On the bottom, measure out whatever your seam allowance was, fold it along that line, and iron it. Fold it over again, iron it, pin it and sew. Repeat on the side seams. You won’t be hemming the top because it will be enclosed in the waistband. This stitching will be visible, so make sure it’s straight and that you sew the same distance from the edge of the fabric each time. I’ll leave it up to you to figure you how far from the edge you sew. You might also want to zigzag stitch along the top of the skirt piece to stop it from fraying while you work with it (or use a serger if you're rich enough to have one, but if you're that rich you might as well just buy the skirt from the school).
Step 4: Putting in Pleats
The first step to putting in pleats is to take your apron width and measure that distance from the right edge of the fabric. Mark a line at that distance with fabric chalk. Repeat this from the left side as well. You are not going to put in any pleats in these sections.
Next, You need to figure out how big to make your pleats. With my school's kilts, I found that the pleats were about 1.25" wide at the top and 1.5" wide at the bottom. This size difference makes the kilt look more gathered in the waist, as at the top the pleats are deeper to accommodate the fabric. However, this can make it more difficult to fold the pleats, especially when working with pleats of a different size (there's a bunch of math that goes into figuring this out so you can't just choose any numbers). If your kilt will have approximately the same size pleats as mine, you can follow along with the 'gathered' pleats tutorial, otherwise I would just do normal pleats.
Normal Pleats
To make normal pleats, take your desired pleat width and, starting at the left line, measure and mark this distance. Then measure from that point another pleat width distance. Continue doing this until you reach the right line.