Where to find a plant-fiber Black Watch tartan?

[Mr. Beard]

Hi! I've lurked the forums for a while and now that I'm ready to make my own kilt I've run into a problem. For various reasons I don't want a kilt of wool or of synthetic fibers, and that knocks out a huge number of options for me. If I wanted a modern-looking kilt of a solid color I'd be fine, but I'd really like a Black Watch tartan or something stylistically similar.

I've found these few cotton options:

http://giftshop.scottishtartans.org/cotton.htm

http://www.thescottishweaver.com/Cot...nPlaidFabric/#

...but there isn't a design amongst those that really calls out to me, and while I have a goodly amount of Scottish blood in me, I haven't traced my ancestry to know if there's a specific clan tartan I'd like to wear.

In short, does anyone know if there is such a beast as a 10-14oz Black Watch tartan in any plant fiber based material?

Thanks for any info and for such a great forum!

[sydnie7]

Are you asking about 100% plant-fiber-based, or will a blend suffice? There are plenty of poly-viscose (synthetic/rayon blend) tartans available.

One of the challenges you'll encounter with most pure plant fiber fabrics is wrinkling. Like all the linen garments I've ever owned, which could come out of the dry-cleaning cover and immediately look as if I'd slept them. You can get away with that with some garments, but a wrinkled kilt just looks wrong.

[Mr. Beard]

A blend would be fine, if it didn't contain any synthetics. I hear all sorts of good things about polyviscose as an affordable kilt material but it's just not for me.

I'm fully prepared to be a wrinkle magnet. Well, I say that now, we'll see how I feel after dealing with it for a while, but I want to give it a shot.

For a moment I almost thought of using something like this:

http://www.scotlandshop.com/p-88-bru...&locale=en-US&

...and doubling it up and stitching it together just to see if it would work as a weird fabric laminate. Then I realized I was applying woodworking ideas to fabrics and that maybe it was a pretty silly idea and would result in the most ridiculous looking and poorest-wearing kilt ever.

[Paul Henry]

A blend would be fine, if it didn't contain any synthetics. I hear all sorts of good things about polyviscose as an affordable kilt material but it's just not for me.

I'm fully prepared to be a wrinkle magnet. Well, I say that now, we'll see how I feel after dealing with it for a while, but I want to give it a shot.

For a moment I almost thought of using something like this:

http://www.scotlandshop.com/p-88-bru...&locale=en-US&

...and doubling it up and stitching it together just to see if it would work as a weird fabric laminate. Then I realized I was applying woodworking ideas to fabrics and that maybe it was a pretty silly idea and would result in the most ridiculous looking and poorest-wearing kilt ever.

I've made many kilts out of linen or cotton, or linen/cotton mixtures, yes they do crease, but I edge stitch each pleat, inside and outside, and that helps to reduce the worst of it, but I do give it a light press before I wear everytime.
Don't be tempted to use two layers together, it's a recipe for problems, sorry.
And as to plant fibre black watch, sorry I can't help, but I'd stay away from brushed cotton types, it's unlikely to hang well and will have an attraction to itself!