Tartan Design Questions

[KyleAisteach]

The ScotWeb design tool is pretty good about letting you know what size your sett will be based on what you're doing, and whether or not it's a good size for kilting. Bear in mind, however, that it bases its estimates on their heaviest wool option, so the sett will be smaller if you go for something lighter weight. But if you're registering the tartan, you're actually registering the ratio, not the specific thread count, so when Marton Mills made mine in PV, they upped the thread count to make the sett a more reasonable size for kilting (I designed it as a 6" sett, what they produced after upping the thread count is a 4.5" sett).

If you're using ScotWeb to produce the tartan/kilt for you, they will give you an option of three palettes to choose from, two of which will have very little resemblance to what you design, but are quite lovely. Don't obsess about particular shades, because they will, necessarily, change in production.

Having now made a kilt, I don't recommend designing an asymmetric tartan. I seriously debated it and am now very glad I didn't.

Those are the life lessons from having done this that I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more...

[Todd Bradshaw]

A couple of other things....... Assuming that you have designed a tartan that you like, which the software says is a good sett size for kilting, and it looks good in the enlarged preview, you really won't be seeing an awful lot of it. The preview will probably only show you a bit more than one sett (maybe a woven piece that would only be 6"x6" or so). In many cases I've found that in order to really see what the tartan looks like, you need to see a lot more of it, with the pattern repeating several times.

What I do is take a screen capture of the preview, stick it in Photoshop and stitch a whole bunch of them together - yielding the image that a hunk of tartan that is a couple feet square would have. Without a photo program, I suppose they could even be printed, cut out, and taped together. Some of the designs that I liked on the designer looked quite different when you could see more repeats. Some seemed rather boring, others just didn't do what I thought they would do, and some I just no longer liked. The tartan designer is quite good, but there is no way I would invest in any new design without first getting some sort of look at a bigger piece of it.

For example: This was my design #15 as seen on the designer (I eventually drew more than 30 designs, so I just numbered them to keep track of them and we finally settled on pattern #6 for our tartan- hence the Bradshaw T6 tartans shown above).



This was the enlarged preview the designer gave me. So far, so good. It even looks like woven cloth.



But when I stitched a bunch of them together to get a better idea of what the expanded pattern would look like, I got this weird op-art effect that I didn't really like and hadn't anticipated when looking at the previews. It kind of brought up a mental image of folks behind me in the parade of tartans falling over because they got dizzy looking at my kilt. I don't think I would ever have noticed it without seeing the expanded preview - at least until the bolt arrived........

[KyleAisteach]

What I do is take a screen capture of the preview, stick it in Photoshop and stitch a whole bunch of them together - yielding the image that a hunk of tartan that is a couple feet square would have.

Now that you mention it, I did the same thing. Very highly recommended practice. It did prompt me to change my design subtly.

[Todd Bradshaw]

During the design and ordering process you also want to make sure that your wool tartan will be woven with kilting selvedge edges. These factory finished edges will be the bottom of your kilt, with no hem required. The weaver's design team will most likely have this in mind when you order a kilt-weight tartan, but check anyway - just to be sure.

[figheadair]

During the design and ordering process you also want to make sure that your wool tartan will be woven with kilting selvedge edges. These factory finished edges will be the bottom of your kilt, with no hem required. The weaver's design team will most likely have this in mind when you order a kilt-weight tartan, but check anyway - just to be sure.

Having a selvedge, as opposed to a tucked edge, is only possible from some weavers. Dalgliesh still offers it on some of their cloth, Elliots on all of theirs.

[Todd Bradshaw]

The Marton Mills wool tartan that I have has a very neat tucked selvedge that has worked fine (weft yarns do a 180 at the edge and come back into the weave for about 1/2" where they are trimmed off). I'm not aware of any wool tartan weavers using a fringed selvedge like you find on denims, some woven wools and some synthetics or blends made to resemble wool (which would be undesirable and require hemming) but I only have tartan from about four different weavers, so I'd check before buying, just to be sure. Surprises on expensive custom orders like a roll of tartan would not be much fun. The more information you can gather with expanded pattern images, yarn samples for color, and nailing down the details before placing your order, the better.

The good news is that the people I have dealt with when placing my tartan orders have all been helpful, patient and terrific to work with, despite the fact that I'm not some big company ordering hundreds of yards of cloth. I actually get better service from the tartan weavers than I do from the sailcloth companies when buying fabric for work.

[WalesLax]

Purely out of curiosity (and possibly out of a drink I had at a wedding last night), can you guys give me an idea of what it would cost to make a kilt out of a personally designed tartan? I understand that this will probably be a target you could drive a truck through, but it would be interesting to know.

I had always figured I would wear something in the Roberts Tartan at my wedding, or something close - other family weddings have used more commercially available but "close" tartans like the Rangers Strath Blue. That said, I think it would be a really interesting idea to make one that incorporates elements of my tartan and her adopted tartan. As warned, this design site has gotten addictive, and I am just curious of what the next step might set me back.

Thank you all in advance,

Rob