Custom Polyviscos Tartan

[The Wizard of BC]

Many people have never been in a weaving mill and seen looms in operation. This is why it is sort of hard to understand why some fabrics are as expensive as they are.

To load a loom (called warping) you have to string yarns from a roller in the front (or back) of the loom - through the loom and onto another roller on the opposite side. This first part of the process can create a lot of waste. Depending on the loom this waste can be quite long.
This also means that there is a minimum amout of fabric that a loom can physically make.

All of this work putting the yarns onto the loom for the first time is all done by hand. It is not an entry level job.

So it actually takes exactly the same amount of labor to warp a loom for the minimum yardage as it does for a long piece. It also takes the same amount of labor to warp a loom for 12oz P/V as it does for 16oz wool.

So there is a resulting minimum cost for a short run of fabric. Many weavers set their minimum cost the same for any type of fabric.

Marton Mills charges the exact same amount to warp the loom and weave 11 meters of P/V as they do to warp and weave 11 meters of 16oz wool.

Basicallly what you are paying for is the labor to warp the loom.

Then there are the associated costs to ship the fabric across the ocean, and the retail mark-up so the business can keep the lights on.

The result of all of this is that any custom run of fabric is, in the end, going to cost more than buying fabric that is already woven and sitting on a shelf somewhere.

Please expect prices for a minimum yardage run of fabric to be somewhere between $700.00 and $1000.00 US dollars depending in the weaving mill and the retail source.

I know that this does not sound right at first. You would expect that a length of wool would cost more than the same length of P/V. But please remember that this is a bespoke, custom job. You are paying for the labor to warp the loom. Once the loom is warped the cost will change dramatically to weave a longer piece than a short one. And the P/V yarns themselves are less expensive.

The big difference between weaving wool and P/V comes in at right about 60 meters. This difference is what you would normally see if you ordered fabric that is already woven and sitting on a shelf.