Custom baby kilt and Logo design

We mailed off our first custom baby kilt today! We haven't really tried to get a lot of custom orders as we use what fabric we have and such but this nice lady had contacted us wanting a baby kilt that was green. So I looked in our lovely krazy stash of fabric and -wahoo- found a wool acrylic blend that was a green tartan! She wanted it to be able to fit a 3-6 month old so I got looking into size charts and pulled out some baby shorts that were that size and funny enough some of the other kilts I made were just the right size but I had just gone off what looked right proportionally. Plus, since we just use safety pins to close the kilt they're even more adjustable. I've tried a bit with velcro which I've seen on other kilts but in order to get it sewn on all the way it creates a seam that really sticks out like a sore thumb. I think this baby kilt turned out really nice though and I hope they really like it. Here's some pictures!

 

This is the front - I'm really pleased with the fringe, I love making that part of the kilt but you can't do it with every kind of fabric; it has to be woven like this wool blend to work out and look right

 Here's the back of the kilt, I'm super happy at how well the lines lined up - not the easiest thing to do, I have to just hold the pleat together and offset it since the sewing machine will push it and make the lines uneven if I don't offset - no pins - it kind of feels like sewing blind, but I've gotten the hang of it :)

 Here's the kilt all laid out

 Here's the kilt with just the front apron pulled out - the selvedge edge of the fabric had that white line so I had to fold it up and do a hem. I much prefer to use the selvedge itself as the hem but this still looked nice with the folded up hem. The underside of this fabric had a soft pile to it which I think is a nice touch for a baby kilt.

If you want a custom kilt or know someone that does, check out our shop and drop us a line and we'll see what we can do. Of course make sure we have enough time to do the whole thing, we can't make custom order stuff in a day. ;)

We've been working on putting together a logo for some time now and it's finally all done. I think it's a lot of fun and gives the essence of us in a quick and simple way. Now I'm tempted to make tshirts and all sorts of crazy stuff even though we're just a small business because hey - we've got a logo. :D

Denim Kilt

I love when you get to do a project that not only helps you get back into the swing of things but turns out so well it reinstates your belief in yourself - one of those "Oh yeah, I can do this kind of thing" moments.

This last weekend presented a project just like that. My friend Amie wanted to make a kilt for her husband. I offered for her to come over and I'd teach her and help her make one. She actually took me up on the offer and showed up at my house a few days later. Thankfully she had chosen a solid color fabric for her first kilt (much easier to work with than tartan) and she brought her 3 boys who helped keep my 2 kids distracted so we could work. (well, as distracted as kids can get, sadly it was raining outside most of the time so they couldn't be out, so there were a few moments of boredom and craziness but that's to be expected right?) :)

I'm happy to say that while we didn't get it done that day, she came over a second day and we finished it! Not too bad for a first kilt! But it was so fun to help her put it together and see how happy and proud she was as it came together and it looks great! We had a fun time making it and it helped me remember how fun doing kilts can be! Her husband wasn't all too sure about a kilt but after he tried it on he took a bit of a liking to it - which he should because he looks great! Don't you think so?

 

 

National Tartan Day!

Today, April 6th, is National Tartan Day!

And it just so happens that yesterday I was helping a friend make a kilt and I really got that pull and desire to get back into this whole Krazy thing. I had huge plans for this blog and for Krazy Kilts in general but life has a way of laughing mockingly at those plans. So I'm going to try and put forth a few goals for myself with this blog and by having it written down for all the world to see I'm going to believe in myself that I can achieve those goals. (whew, that was hard to write since I kept wanting to say "hopefully" and "perhaps" - but those who wear kilts do not have a doubtful disposition, we are a brave strong variety of humans and we will stay strong in our pride right?!) :)

Goals for Krazy Kilt blog:

•  Do more than two post over the next 6 months! (have to start out small and do better than we've been doing right?) 

• Post pictures and share story behind kilt bustle

• Post pictures of our own kilt collection

• Do a post about all the things I hope to make and sell with Krazy Kilts

•  Do post talking about other blogs, or fun pictures, or inspiration - there's a ton of fun stuff I've seen on facebook and pinterest, I might as well share it 

• Finally make some tie dye kilts to sell - we bought the fabric but our friend that is tie-dying it ran into a huge project plus winter made it so he couldn't get all those yards and yards of fabric outside to dry after dying, but the weather has finally warmed up and the project is done so he's getting our brightly swirling colored fabric started. Hooray!

• Make some more kid kilts. I've made a bunch of baby kilts but just one kid kilt for my own son - he loves wearing it and I love how much he enjoys it so I want to try and make more.

•  Finish the not tartan, not kilt, just fun costume stuff that I've made and plan to sell in our shop and post pictures of them for you all to enjoy. (If I imagine I'm writing for hundreds of people to read it will happen right?) :D

Back to that kilt I was helping make yesterday - my friend hasn't ever made a kilt before, she hasn't really sewn that much before. But we worked on a denim kilt for her husband for about 4 hours and we got very close to finishing it! It was nice because I was just doing it as a fun thing with a friend and it helped me to remember how quick and easy and fun these things can be - a confidence boost for sure. And while it's true that we were able to get so much done because her kids were over and distracted and tormented, I mean played with and entertained of course, my kids and each other - I'm going to believe that I can accomplish my goals and more even if my kids are around. Thankfully the weather warming up means they can go outside more and that alleviates a lot of the "entertain us at all hours of the day mom" dilemma that hinders kilt sewing.

So I hope you're inspired by National Tartan Day - wear a kilt, or at least enjoy a few pictures of some great looking guys and others in kilts like the ones below!

Fun Video

A little after we started up on Etsy, there was a competition for new businesses on Instructables.com The winners got quite a lot of money to help get their business going and we figured - why not? It helped motivate me to do a bit more than just the little baby kilts so I got a bustle kilt made (I'll do a whole post about my bustle kilt later, I promise) and I made up some designs to show what we hope to be able to make in the future. The competition called for a video but it could only be 1 minute. Yep, ONE MINUTE ONLY! Kind of crazy, but we were up for the challenge. We didn't win the competition but I'm glad we made the video. You can check it all out at the Krazy Kilts Instructable Post and read about our vision ;)

Or you can watch it here

How it all started

So you want to know how we came up with the krazy idea for making a company where we sell krazy kilts? Well, we'll have to go way, way, waaaay back to a time long ago. ;) My husband has always liked kilts. He has a wee bit of Scottish blood in him but he's always loved history and learning about other cultures and there's just always been something about kilts that he thought was cool. So he would scour the skirt racks at thrift stores (I'm sure this had to have looked crazy, a 98 lb 6 feet tall teenage boy looking at women's skirts) But his persistence (and ability of not caring what people think of him) helped him to find a few kilts that were tucked away and were even wool and fit him. He also found out about great kilts, the kind where you just have a big stretch of fabric that's not sewn and you hand pleat it each time you wear it. So it was that he looked like this when I met him. Isn't he handsome?!

And so we dated, yadda yadda, three years after we met we got married. (Ok, so some people wouldn't blink an eye at that but I do have to interject that this is a big deal as we met and were dating at BYU, a university known for its "Mrs." degrees and engagements after 3 weeks of dating, but I digress) So my handsome husband wore a kilt for our wedding!  I should mention here that we met in the Quill and the Sword, the medieval club at BYU and medieval reenactment through that as well as the Society of Creative Anachronism, (SCA) along with Scottish festivals, Ren Faires and the like are just part of who we are and what we do.

 By this time I had procured a copy of the most amazing Kilt Making Book ever, "Art of Kilt Making" by Barbara Tewksbury and Elsie Stuehmeyer. Well, actually I had gotten it as a present for my handsome husband. This book taught me more about kilts then every website I had scoured over. It also scared me to death as I felt I could never make a kilt the "correct" way, for you see, a proper kilt is fitted such that the pleats are not straight. It's hard to believe but the pleats actually taper in and out so as to fit snug at the waist where traditional kilts are worn. So I set the book aside and didn't worry about it to much other than the hour long conversations my handsome husband and I would have on the topic of kilts and their construction.

With the passing of a few years we have a daughter and a baby boy. For the boy I wanted him to have a unique christening outfit, so I endeavored to make my first true kilt. But then I had a revelation - since he was so small with such a big round tummy, there wasn't a need to taper the pleats and straight pleats would work so I could sew it on the machine and not have to do it all by hand. The teeny tiny pleats were a bit daunting and I had my first taste of plaid and a sewing machine - I learned that you can not pin your work but must simply hold it together and most importantly you have to offset the lines as the sewing machine presser foot pushes the fabric as it sews and if your lines match up when you start they will skew after you sew. But it was a true labor of love and still one of my favorites that I've ever made.


Then, a few years later, through the benefits of marriage, parenthood, and old age, my husband outgrew his kilts and was in need of another.   So I tapped into my hippie muse and took a tie dye sheet we had and made him a kilt. (Now I had made him one before we had gotten the book on how to make kilts, it was for a bad garb contest at an SCA event and it sat wrong and was pretty awful) This kilt however worked out wonderfully and many people have admired it when he's worn it to Scottish festivals and the like.

I chose to start the kilt at the hips instead of the waist as that's where my husband felt most comfortable wearing them and this made it possible to have the pleats be straight, just like the baby kilt I had made, which meant it could be done on the sewing machine but still look and fit great! I took what I had figured out and made a new kilt for our boy who had grown up a bit by this time.

I made a few baby kilts as presents but when lots of people starting saying they would be willing to pay for some of our krazy stuff we thought "Why not?" So with a little ingenuity and husband rearing for even a small start of a business, I put together a few baby kilts and we opened an Etsy shop!We opened it in Aug. of 2012 and while we had big plans a few things in life became bigger - like the holidays and what not - but with luck we'll get more things made and have fun doing it too.