History of Prince of Wales Tartan

[GlassMan]

That's really cool. I like the idea that it came out of a mistake!

[M. A. C. Newsome]

What other tartans are the result of weaving errors? Well, the first one that springs to my mind is the Ross Hunting. It originally was a much simpler tartan than it is now.

When you see it woven today, you'll notice two light green groupings of stripes, one of them half the size of the other. The smaller one is the mistake. Originally there was only one grouping of light green stripes -- the larger one, made up of two wide bands flanked by two narrow bands.

Somewhere down the line someone saw a peice of this tartan that only included half of this light green portion. Believing that was the entire sett, the tartan was woven up with every other light green grouping only half the size. This effectively doubled the entire size of the sett, creating a much more complicated tartan.

Another example is the Buchanan tartan, which is today an assymetric tartan (the pattern does not reverse when it repeats). Originally it was a normal symmetrical tartan like most others.

Another example that fewer people will be familiar with is the Martin tartan. This tartan was "adpoted" by kilt maker Bob Martin from a peice of non-named tartan he discovered in a fabric store and decided to adopt as the "Martin tartan." It was recorded by the Scottish Tartans Society as such. Many years later another gentleman named Martin was getting married and wanted a kilt in the Martin tartan, so he commissioned a mill to weave it. When the cloth arrived -- only weeks before the wedding -- it was in a completely different tartan. The gentleman contacted Bob Martin to see if this was some unknown variation of the Martin tartan that he did not know about. Bob told him that he had never seen it before. As there was no time before the wedding to get the actual Martin tartan re-woven, they decided to adopt this new tartan as "Martin hunting" and now you'll see this one on the records, as well!

Just a few examples....
M

[Cawdorian]

Very interesting, I never cease to be amazed at the depth of knowledge available here on the X-Marks Forum.