What is the appropriate wait time for a custom Kilt?

[PiperPadre]

One of my kilts took over a year to arrive and this frustration was not owing to the wonderful kilt maker, Mary Tierney. Once she took receipt of the cloth, she had it in the mail to me in a few days and the fit was perfect.

In this case, emails were met with a "the cloth is being woven now" - a response that would be repeated several times over a period of a half a year to each email inquiry made. One inquiry, however, engendered a different response: "The loom broke", which was then followed up with the now traditional "The cloth is being woven now."

[PiperPadre]

Another, larger kilt making emporium (not an advertiser here, but for the sake of propriety I won't say the name, although I believe it's owned by Doug and Dinsdale Piranha), got back to me a month after I placed the order: "Which tartan did you say you wanted?" So, that was nice.

Three months after that they informed me that the wrong tartan cloth showed up and the mill wouldn't take it back. They gave me two options - which was thoughtful:

1. Cancel the order and forget about it (they were hoping for that);

or

2. Get to the back of the cue as if the order were made for the first time, that day. Sublime.

I could tell the purveyor of that business was not happy that I wanted to proceed with the order even under his newly minted and unfair conditions. Taking his own frustrations out on a customer is an interesting business model but, as far as I could see, from my end, that was a mere first world problem. After 8 months my MacLennan kilt beautiful arrived.