Rohrer Learns To Sew A Kilt In Scotland
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
The Edgewood Middle School family and consumer sciences teacher spent 10 days at kilt school, thanks to a Lilly Endowment grant.
“My passion is sewing. I absolutely love to sew and very rarely get time to do it. So my dream was to get a Lilly Teacher Creativity grant, and this is the second time I’ve applied. I actually won,” she said. “So my project I designed was to go to Scotland, to kilt school, and make a kilt and come back and explain it to the public and my students and give some presentations.”
The Lilly Endowment 2013 Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program granted Rohrer $10,000 to make her dream come true.
She made arrangements with the Keith Kilt and Textile School in the Highlands of Scotland, in a large area of Scotland called Banffshire. She flew there in June and took the school’s 10-day course for beginners.
“I was extremely lucky that three other beginners signed up for the class, also, so I had people to talk to while I sewed,” Rohrer said.
Advanced students also rotated in and out on a daily basis, letting her meet a lot of people and see kilts in various stages of production. She also saw a lot of fabric that way, too.
“I was their first international student at the school,” Rohrer said, though an Australian lady later signed up.
She recalled a guy in the class who was a newly retired Royal Army engineer trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Rohrer said he had never sewn anything more than a button.
“So he had a huge learning curve, but he was an engineer so he was very particular and did very well,” she commented.
The third lady in her class had just quit a job working in a woolen mill and was doing one kilt for a friend and wanted to do another for her husband.
“It was a variety of people,” she said. “Some people traveled far. One student lived a half hour away. Several of the students traveled by train for three hours to get to the school. ... Some of the advanced students traveled far for two days of instruction and then would go home and sew for quite awhile and come back in a month and get some more instruction.”
On the first day of class, Rohrer said they started with a sample. “We spent the whole day learning stitches, hand-sewing stitches. A few of them I knew, but there were some that really stretched my abilities and I really had to work hard and practice,” she said.
Every night, she had homework. She took the sample home and did what she thought was right, but when she got back to class, she had to rip it apart and learn it again.
The teacher really pushed Rohrer because she knew Rohrer had a limited amount of time to finish.
“By day three, I was worried when I saw how much work there was ahead. And it accelerated from there. By the end, the last night before the last day of school, I did almost an all-nighter. They’ve extended the class now to 12 days,” Rohrer said.
“It stretched my imagination, but I loved every second. It was intense, totally intense sewing. But I loved every second of it,” she continued.
Before taking the class, Rohrer had never touched an authentic kilt until she was in Scotland. The night before the class started, a woman she knew in Scotland pulled out her husband’s kilt and let Rohrer look at it.
“After the two weeks were over, I looked at that kilt again with a whole new appreciation,” she said.
Since Rohrer is not Scottish, she does not have a family Tartan. So when she asked what design she should use for her kilt, they told her to look at several websites and pick what she liked.
“So that was fun, but it also was totally frustrating because there were hundreds of Tartans to look at on the Internet,” she said.
Tartan is basically anything Americans would call plaid, Rohrer explained.
Kilt fabric is 100 percent worsted wool.
“And this is the finest wool fabric I’ve ever laid my hands on personally. It is fabulous,” she said.
The kilt started with fabric that was 8 meters long and 30 inches wide.
“So it’s going to be about 9 yards. So when people say the ‘whole 9 yards’ in slang, that’s where it comes from. Kilt making,” Rohrer said.
She said it takes a lot of table space to make a kilt. By the time she was finished, she only cut off about 24 inches of wool. When she wears her kilt, she’s wearing approximately 8-1/2 yards of fabric. She estimated the kilt weighs around 4 pounds.
“There are 33 pleats in my kilt. That’s custom designed. (The instructor) first thought she was going to have me make 29. I had sewn 29 and it took hours and hours. I put it on me and she told me, ‘I hate to tell you this but you need four more pleats.’ When she said that I knew it would be a couple more hours of work,” Rohrer said.
While in Scotland, Rohrer didn’t get to do a lot of sightseeing. However, she did manage to get in a one-hour spinning lesson, visit a sheep-shearing farm and go to the Cairngorm Mountains.
She learned Scottish terminology and culture, and ate Haggis. Haggis is traditionally a pudding made up of ground sheeps’ hearts, livers and lungs chopped up and mixed with oatmeal, onions and spices.
She will use everything she learned on the trip in her classroom, whether it’s the sewing, food or culture. She will present it to various groups, including the Indiana FACS Association.
Rohrer concluded by stating she was very thankful for the award from the Lilly Endowment. It has enriched her life and fulfilled some of her dreams.
She added, “I am very grateful to friends and colleagues for helping me with writing the application, making travel arrangements and the encouragement to do this. I am grateful for the kind hospitality I have received from the Scottish people.”
For more information about the Lilly Endowment, visit www.lillyendowment.org[[In-content Ad]]
The Edgewood Middle School family and consumer sciences teacher spent 10 days at kilt school, thanks to a Lilly Endowment grant.
“My passion is sewing. I absolutely love to sew and very rarely get time to do it. So my dream was to get a Lilly Teacher Creativity grant, and this is the second time I’ve applied. I actually won,” she said. “So my project I designed was to go to Scotland, to kilt school, and make a kilt and come back and explain it to the public and my students and give some presentations.”
The Lilly Endowment 2013 Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program granted Rohrer $10,000 to make her dream come true.
She made arrangements with the Keith Kilt and Textile School in the Highlands of Scotland, in a large area of Scotland called Banffshire. She flew there in June and took the school’s 10-day course for beginners.
“I was extremely lucky that three other beginners signed up for the class, also, so I had people to talk to while I sewed,” Rohrer said.
Advanced students also rotated in and out on a daily basis, letting her meet a lot of people and see kilts in various stages of production. She also saw a lot of fabric that way, too.
“I was their first international student at the school,” Rohrer said, though an Australian lady later signed up.
She recalled a guy in the class who was a newly retired Royal Army engineer trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Rohrer said he had never sewn anything more than a button.
“So he had a huge learning curve, but he was an engineer so he was very particular and did very well,” she commented.
The third lady in her class had just quit a job working in a woolen mill and was doing one kilt for a friend and wanted to do another for her husband.
“It was a variety of people,” she said. “Some people traveled far. One student lived a half hour away. Several of the students traveled by train for three hours to get to the school. ... Some of the advanced students traveled far for two days of instruction and then would go home and sew for quite awhile and come back in a month and get some more instruction.”
On the first day of class, Rohrer said they started with a sample. “We spent the whole day learning stitches, hand-sewing stitches. A few of them I knew, but there were some that really stretched my abilities and I really had to work hard and practice,” she said.
Every night, she had homework. She took the sample home and did what she thought was right, but when she got back to class, she had to rip it apart and learn it again.
The teacher really pushed Rohrer because she knew Rohrer had a limited amount of time to finish.
“By day three, I was worried when I saw how much work there was ahead. And it accelerated from there. By the end, the last night before the last day of school, I did almost an all-nighter. They’ve extended the class now to 12 days,” Rohrer said.
“It stretched my imagination, but I loved every second. It was intense, totally intense sewing. But I loved every second of it,” she continued.
Before taking the class, Rohrer had never touched an authentic kilt until she was in Scotland. The night before the class started, a woman she knew in Scotland pulled out her husband’s kilt and let Rohrer look at it.
“After the two weeks were over, I looked at that kilt again with a whole new appreciation,” she said.
Since Rohrer is not Scottish, she does not have a family Tartan. So when she asked what design she should use for her kilt, they told her to look at several websites and pick what she liked.
“So that was fun, but it also was totally frustrating because there were hundreds of Tartans to look at on the Internet,” she said.
Tartan is basically anything Americans would call plaid, Rohrer explained.
Kilt fabric is 100 percent worsted wool.
“And this is the finest wool fabric I’ve ever laid my hands on personally. It is fabulous,” she said.
The kilt started with fabric that was 8 meters long and 30 inches wide.
“So it’s going to be about 9 yards. So when people say the ‘whole 9 yards’ in slang, that’s where it comes from. Kilt making,” Rohrer said.
She said it takes a lot of table space to make a kilt. By the time she was finished, she only cut off about 24 inches of wool. When she wears her kilt, she’s wearing approximately 8-1/2 yards of fabric. She estimated the kilt weighs around 4 pounds.
“There are 33 pleats in my kilt. That’s custom designed. (The instructor) first thought she was going to have me make 29. I had sewn 29 and it took hours and hours. I put it on me and she told me, ‘I hate to tell you this but you need four more pleats.’ When she said that I knew it would be a couple more hours of work,” Rohrer said.
While in Scotland, Rohrer didn’t get to do a lot of sightseeing. However, she did manage to get in a one-hour spinning lesson, visit a sheep-shearing farm and go to the Cairngorm Mountains.
She learned Scottish terminology and culture, and ate Haggis. Haggis is traditionally a pudding made up of ground sheeps’ hearts, livers and lungs chopped up and mixed with oatmeal, onions and spices.
She will use everything she learned on the trip in her classroom, whether it’s the sewing, food or culture. She will present it to various groups, including the Indiana FACS Association.
Rohrer concluded by stating she was very thankful for the award from the Lilly Endowment. It has enriched her life and fulfilled some of her dreams.
She added, “I am very grateful to friends and colleagues for helping me with writing the application, making travel arrangements and the encouragement to do this. I am grateful for the kind hospitality I have received from the Scottish people.”
For more information about the Lilly Endowment, visit www.lillyendowment.org[[In-content Ad]]
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