I'm sure that the idea has come up, but I'm going to pitch it again.

Expense, it's thought, is too great. OK, I'm going going to swing from the hip, here and let's talk about expense. I fully admit that I know next to nothing, but here goes.

1. Tartan Design: our very own Thistle Stop Lady, Cydni is a tartan designer. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts there are some other folks here who can do this as well. Cyndi, what would you charge to design an X Marks tartan?

2. Getting a sample, or a few yards woven:

http://www.tartanweaver.com/

It doesn't HAVE to be 200 yards of 16 ounce material from a custom Scottish mill for the first run. I think Molly V. Manaugh could probably whip up a few yards of a lightweight tartan that would be just excellent for ties and things without breaking the bank. If she knew she was going to get orders for fifteen ties I bet she'd do it. I bet she'd think it was a really nifty project. I bet she's not the only small weaver around that can do this, as well.

I think having an X Marks tartan tie would be a riot, and I'd buy one, for darned sure.

3. Registering the tartan.

Um. Just to be problematic here, why do we HAVE to register the tartan?

4. Now, getting 25-plus yards of commerical-weight tartan woven is not cheap, but if I remember rightly, Bear has some connections with a local weaver in Vancouver. His "Celtic Pride" tartan is made by this weaver. I've no doubt that USA K and Barb and M.A.C Newsome also have connections like this. In fact I know that M.A.C. does.

Now, WHAT IF three-four people committed to buying kilts from one or more of these folks? We're not talking about getting Locharron to run off 100 yards of it, OK? We're talking about a small local mill or maybe even a handweaver with a big loom who wants to bite of a big project doing 4 x 5 yards of it. If people really need to trim the budget then the mill might be able to run a wool/poly blend rather than 100% wool. I don't know, I know precisely nothing about weaving.

For example, M.A.C. Newsome charges $65 a yard for a custom tartan weave. That's for a mediumweight 100% wool tartan. That's not cheap but that's what you pay for Locharron and other Scottish wools, so it seems reasonable to me. WHAT IF a wool/poly blend were more like $30 a yard retail?

...Then getting 20 yards of the stuff for 4 "casual" kilts is a little closer to reasonable, eh? MAYBE, just MAYBE someone like USA Kilts or Bear would turn out a machine-sewn (not hand-sewn) philabeg (or their similar product) for you for $100 plus the cost of the material (4 yards at $30 a yard makes $120) and you'd have a wool blend, totally unique 4 yard casual kilt for roughly $220.

Or maybe folks would want the 100% wool product, handsewn. Bear or Barb or M.A.C. Newsome would be entirely delighted to make a kilt like that for a customer, I'm sure. It'd cost quite a bit more than the "casual kilt" for sure, but it could be done.

OK, discuss amongst yourselves. Like I said, I'm shooting from the hip, here, but $2,000 to crank out a few yards of wool in a new tartan seems whacko to me.