Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
Peter I'll have to disagree about the binding. It's absolutely clear that the same edging goes along the bottom of the (great) kilt and up the front edge, in The Piper painting. The painter certainly would not have taken the selvedge colour and put it up the front edge of the kilt where it didn't exist. It simply wasn't in the bones painter of that style and quality to invent something like that; it would have gone against his training and the art style of the period.
Well we'll have to disagree; however, from a technical perspective there is obviously no need to bind a selvedge and the act of doing so would affect the handle of the cloth because it would not move like body of the plaid. There is no know actual example of a plaid with a binding, there are however at least two surviving plaid with a total border - discussed here. We have no idea how common this technique was as the majority of 18th century plaids haven't survive but it is reasonable to assume that the technique was used on other examples and there is no reason to suppose that it was not also done with a selvedge mark as opposed to a selvedge pattern in the NS plaids.