Féileadh Mòr - Kilt Hose

Not too shabby

I made kilt hose from flannel "tartan"cloth. Unfortunately, wool tartan cloth is just too expensive for my Renaissance Faire garb. I'm sure some historical reenactors would say flannel is probably one of the worst fabrics I could pick, but it was the only thing available at a reasonable price. My great kilt requried at least eight yards of cloth. Someday, I'd love to make my garb from vegetable dye homespun wool - someday.

Since these hose are not knit, you need to cut on the bias so the fabric has some stretch. Don't bother trying to find a pattern. The easiest way to make them is to drape some scrap fabric around your leg and foot, pin it, and trim. You want to trim fairly close and with the seam along the back of your leg. Sew up the scrap, try them on, sew them a bit closer to take up any slack, and repeat. Stand with the pattern on to make sure you can flex your foot. If you trim too closely, you'll put too much stress on the heel. Resist the urge to cut out the bunched fabric on top of your ankle, I'll explain later.

When you've sewn them as close as you can, trim the excess fabric close to the seam. This will simplify tracing them onto papper to make a pattern. Give your pattern a half inch margin for the seam. This will give you some extra fabric to adjust the fit. It's much easier to cut excess fabric off than to add it back on.

My customized tartan kilt hose pattern

You'll notice the pattern is a single piece and does not have a seam in the front. The seam runs along the back. This keeps any mismatch with the tartan pattern along the back of the leg, under the foot, and over the toe. You want to place the pattern on your fabric with the long axis (this becomes the front of the hose) aligned along the bias of the fabric. With a tartan, especially one with a square pattern, this is easily accomplished by lining up corners in the pattern. 

If you are careful, you can pin the fabric along the back seam to match the tartan pattern. To get it right, the edges of the fabric might not be perfectly aligned, but the pattern has enough play in it to take this into account.

The bias cut fabric will be a lot stretchier than what you may be used to sewing. My scrap for the pattern was muslin and not cut on the bias. I found that I needed to sew the seam closer than the pattern to take up the slack. When you're done, just cut around your seam leaving about 1/4 inch of fabric. I used a straight stitch and went over it again to strengthen it a bit. Unless you had to cut a huge edge of fabric off, don't bother adjusting your pattern. You never know how stretchy the fabric for your next pair will be. Again, it easier to cut off excess fabric than to sew it back on.

Tartan kilt hose

I used some short pieces of jute to make simple garters to hold them up. Genetics and karate have given me fairly decent calves, so the twine did not need to be tight and they stayed up all day. Fabric will bunch over the top of the ankle, but it's not much and didn't bother me. Trimming to eliminate it would disrupt the tartan pattern.