Exploring Total Border

[jsrnephdoc]

I consider myself lucky to have "advanced" to being able to distinguish pleating to the sett from to the stripe/military, and from box pleating, and confessing that I'm totally at the mercy of whomever is sewing my kilt to advise me which i should choose for any given tartan.

However, I DID learn, while touring the Lochcarraon Mill in summer 2023 that the need for skill in tartan production is no less important than the need for patience. Near the end of our tour we were shown the "Oops" room (I don't think they called it that), in which a VERY friendly matron was happily repairing a freshly woven (I think 30 meter) bolt of cloth that suffered from a single-thread repeating error. My eyes would have requested a week off from work by the time she finished a single iteration of her task!

[NHhighlander]

/snip/
the need for skill in tartan production is no less important than the need for patience.

When I was pulling this piece of frabric off the loom, I felt rather embarassed in particular about the edge. Because of the impossibility to keep an even pressure in this loom, already did I expect the diagonal symmetry to be off, and I mentioned already the mistakes I had made regarding the color scheme.

The edge, that I thought that should have been able to control better.
OK, sure, it's just the second ever piece of fabric I made in a loom with heddles, but I have woven some in my early days, and my edges were "better," tighter.
Let's have this one here for public display:

weave0101border.jpg

Then, as I was playing with it, and sewing the two halves together, that border and the inherent "ruggedness" of noob work kind of grew on me.
It does help that, generally speaking, I am a fan of naif art, and "wabi sabi" is something that endears any object to me.

Yeeees. I should, and will, strive for quality, the "arete" of Pirsig's "Zen and..."
Squares of the sett MUST be square, to a reasonable expression of square, and certainly the color patterns must match any funny thing of herringbone, etc., I come up with in the selvedge area, the twill must be very close to 45 degrees. The edge will be more even, just because it's a function of the motion of the shuttle, which will become ingrained as muscle memory.
And, funny enough, I've seen this kind of rough edges in some pictures of handmade tartan, and lines that are not completelly straight, etc. If ever somewhere someone looks at my kilt with a hard face, and says, "it looks like you made this yourself!", I'll totally take that as a compliment...

Patience is assuredly a most important ingredient, I agree with you.
Right now I'm in "honeymoon mode." Excited because it is all new.
It remains to be seen if I can keep things moving, as other priorities come up, etc., and routine needs borne on patience.

Near the end of our tour we were shown the "Oops" room (I don't think they called it that), in which a VERY friendly matron was happily repairing a freshly woven (I think 30 meter) bolt of cloth that suffered from a single-thread repeating error. My eyes would have requested a week off from work by the time she finished a single iteration of her task!

That was my dad. Or my sister.
If I have to face that, probably I'll just pay the fee to register whatever came out as a new tartan pattern LOL.
Yeah, they probably run no risk of me taking business away from them!

Edit: apologies, I see your point about skill. Agree. We'll build it, I hope, even though lack of patiece is what I tend to fear most in life.

[NHhighlander]

not "exactly" related to total border, tools are anyway part of moving forward the project.
Very kindly, the lady that sold me the loom included one shuttle, a Leclerc, light and smooth. Tartans have multiple colors, ergo, multiple shuttles is something that adds to the pleasure and productivity. I immediatley made one, pictured in the original post next to the loom, but for moving forward, I'll need a few more.

Early on, I wisely gave up on any pretense to carve out the shuttle out of a single piece of wood. Then, my attempt to turn my cheapo bench drill press into a functional wood lathe was "promising," but not.
I'm happy of what I eventually came up with: two slats of wood, glued to two blocks, then sanded away, I do have a nice disc sander.
Starting a bit earlier than the 2:57 pm timestamp.
Raw blanks:
shuttles1.jpg

"squared" from the rough, 3:22 pm
shuttles2.jpg

Rounded to "final" shape, 4:14pm
shuttles3.jpg

4:56pm, sanded to 180 and then 400 grit, done for today (Friday)
shuttles4.jpg

A good two hours so far. Still need the notches and the athingamabob stick for the bobbin.

Is it worth it? Well, if I actually were paid what I'm worth per hour, then, no.

Plastic Leclerc go for $22 a pop http://www.leclerclooms.com/cat2014a.htm , then what the lady gave me would set me back only $51 (nice unexpected add-on to my purchase, much grateful) (plus shipping and tariffs, eh!) But then, the pleasure of being to some extent self-sufficient, priceless! (I know that's fictional. I had to Amazon-in the sanding paper discs, that was $18, etc)

But I'm not paid much or very often, then, yes. And it's fun!

My collection, on display,
shuttles5.jpg

the one on the foreground was a special treat. In the evening, I grabbed one last blank that I had set aside, and the Swiss-army knife. This one probably took a bit more time, and almost made a blister... But ends up looking good, a final pass of 180 and then 400-grit to round the edges of the chip carving.
In the back are my Leclerc and the prototype, which actually was used for real already.
Sharp eyes will notice that the one in the center already has the notches for the bobbin axle, an easier than expected task with the bench drill press.

[OC Richard]

That's so cool! All this technical weaving stuff is way over my head.

But the "total border" is what I suppose I'm seeing in paintings like this.

Coming from a costuming background, where you study images and try to duplicate the look (while often not understanding how the original was made, nor caring) I would have simply bound the raw edges with a narrow bit of cloth tape.

It was Peter who explained that the border was woven in.



As a costumer I would have bound the edges in false analogy with the tops of military kilts. Besides, for a film or play the costumer probably wouldn't have the knowledge, time, budget, or means to get dozens of plaids woven with the all-around border.

[figheadair]

That's so cool! All this technical weaving stuff is way over my head.

But the "total border" is what I suppose I'm seeing in paintings like this.

Coming from a costuming background, where you study images and try to duplicate the look (while often not understanding how the original was made, nor caring) I would have simply bound the raw edges with a narrow bit of cloth tape.

It was Peter who explained that the border was woven in.

As a costumer I would have bound the edges in false analogy with the tops of military kilts. Besides, for a film or play the costumer probably wouldn't have the knowledge, time, budget, or means to get dozens of plaids woven with the all-around border.

As part of my reconstruction of the tartan in the Grants portraits I spent a long time studying the detail. Some have argued that the band at the edges was some sort of binding (like that baize on the waistband of a military kilt) but that makes absolutely no sense.

Champion-1.jpg Piper-1.jpg

A selvedge, by its very nature, is woven in and so won't fray and using a difference material would have affected the drape and movement of the cloth. I have long believed that these bands were the artist's impression of a selvedge mark and this seems to be supported by what I believe to have been the source/proto-version of these portraits in which the pattern is more regular and a selvedge mark is identifiable.

Portrait of a Highlander, Richard Waitt (NSC_IMAG_INVMG_1966_001P-001).jpg