well, the Bluebonnet was not always copyrighted. I get this from a personal friend of the designer. It was designed by June Prescott McRoberts, (1922-1999) in 1984 for the upcoming Texas Sesquicentennial, she intended it to worn by any Texan. The first official recognition of the tartan came in 1986 when the Sesquicentennial Committee of Texas adopted the Bluebonnet Tartan as the official Sesquicentennial Tartan. In 1989, Representative Stan Schlueter became aware of the Texas Bluebonnet Tartan and put forth the motion that it be officially adopted as the State Tartan. In May 25, 1989, by In-House Concurrence Resolution #242, the Texas Bluebonnet Tartan became the official State Tartan for the great state of Texas.

Before her death in 1999, Mrs.McRoberts commissioned a founder of the Texas Scottish Heritage Society, singer Sia LaBelle Beaton to represent the bluebonnet tartan and gave her the first ladies kilt made from it. Sia promoted the Texas tartan throughout her Scotland tour in 1999. She never knew it was copyrighted either.



Sia Beaton and I in 2010

The current owner is Robert Shelby Foitik, who I was told is Mrs.McRobert's brother, but his copyright was not applied for till 1998, just prior to her death. Scotland Forever are nice folk, and they will sell you wool or PV yardage (at retail) that you can do with as you may. It's a damn shame to me that things are like that, limiting the avalibility of what I think is a truly beautiful tartan that I'm so proud to wear.

All ramble that being said, yeah I don't really care for that new one either, it looks like a Stewart variant to me. But I hope the folks at Things Celtic do well with it.