Tartan Weaving

[Southern Breeze]

Quick question. Is there any differance between machine woven and hand woven tartan?

[Pleater]

Difficult to give a short answer - hand looms vary from the really basic lightweight table looms, to a strapping great thing with a flying shuttle.

Every loom could be regarded as a machine.

Just by having a loom controlled by a computer, for instance, there wouldn't be a difference in the fabric produced, but any big loom might produce a cloth where the warp is at a high tension and the result is more compact than cloth produced on a small loom at lower tension.

A really expert hand weaver might make a cloth which is more even than that from a more mechanically controlled loom - for instance after observing that one particular colour pulled tighter after washing than the others, it would be possible to weave that colour more loosely on some looms.

[Southern Breeze]

I've done a lot of research on this and I don't think there is much,if any,differance. I would like to hear from anyone who's knowledgable in this area.
Anyone, Beuller,Beuller.....

[Barb T]

Hi guys

Hand weaving tartan that is hard and tight enough for a kilt is really a tough job. If you look, for example, at Lochcarron's 16 oz (Strome) weight, it's about 48 threads per inch. Lighter tartan has even more threads per inch. The threads are packed pretty tightly in order to give the hard dense weave of tartan, and weaving fine wool thread at a large number of picks per inch is a real challenge. Fine threads break easily, and packing them closely together means that they tend to stick together when you try to open the shed to throw the shuttle, making it very easy to catch the shuttle and break threads. I've woven high-thread-count tartan before, but only for shirts, and it was many years ago. It was a challenge.

Because of the difficulties, hand woven tartan tends to be woven with heavier threads sett more widely, which produces a heavier and looser weave that is OK for a great kilt but won't produce a trad kilt that looks like what one expects from kilting tartan.

Cheers!

Barb

[Southern Breeze]

Thanks Barb. My curiosity has been apeased. Tartan weaving is not on my to-do list. (maybe in the far distance future.)