Volcano tartan inspired by the volcanoes of Iceland

[Barb T]

Last year, Carol Martin of Beaverlodge in Alberta, Canada, designed a fabulous tartan inspired by the volcanoes of Iceland. You can see the register listing at https://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/ta...ails?ref=11858. She was gracious enough to allow me to have some woven. Carol designs terrific tartans, and D.C. Dalgliesh did an outstanding job of weaving a tartan that looks just like the Register.



I've been in Iceland for the past week doing some field work, and I thought it would be wrong not to work on a Volcano tartan kilt, which I'm making for my volcanologist son-in-law who has worked on volcanoes in Iceland. Here's a pic of the kilt after I finished the pleating. I chose pleating to the black block so that the fabulous lava-colored stripes would flash as "tail feathers" when he walks. And it has swell geologic meaning in addition - black basalt rifts open to reveal the colors of the hot lava. I had Dave take the pic below just as the sun was setting (at about 3:30) with the summit of Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that erupted in 2010 and shut down air routes in Europe. The volcano is under the icecap on the skyline in the pic.



And here's a pic of our field work, with glacier in the background - not the ideal time of year for field work, to be sure! Sun comes up about 10 am and goes down around 3:30, and the temps are right around freezing. When it's windy, raining sideways, and the ceiling is about 12', it's a real challenge, but we only had one day like that. The day in the pic below was cold, cloudy, and windy, but only a few periods of rain. I was well-bundled - thermal underwear, a hooded base layer, a heavy 66N fleece, and a rain jacket. On my head, I had a base layer hood, a ball cap to keep the rain off my glasses, a wool ear-flap hat, and my rain jacket hood.