Hi folks

Speaking as a kiltmaker, I'm happy to share sources of tartan. I can't imagine why someone would want to keep that kind of thing secret.

It is true that buying tartan from Scottish mills is not always easy if you are a retail customer, but there are some mills that will sell readily to individuals. D.C. Dalgliesh is one of those, and they weave beautiful tartan. Much of what they have is either in dress or reproduction (weathered) colors, and in 11-12 oz (a very nice weight for a light kilt). I'm in California right now, but, when I get home, I can post contact info for Dalgliesh. They now have email and take credit cards (something new for them!), but they don't have a web site. I can also post a list of tartans that they carry.

To be honest, I've been disappointed with Fraser and Kirkbright's tartan. Yes, it's less expensive than Scottish tartan, but, to my mind, it has lots of problems. I'm in the middle of making kilts from the XMarks tartan that they wove, and the selvedge isn't perfect enough for kilting (at least in my opinion - the turned threads at the selvedge bleeds the color and makes half of the white stripe a muddy blue in the XMarks tartan). I've used other tartans from their mill that also don't have kilting selvedges. Having said that, thought, this isn't an enormous problem, because you could easily put a hem in the kilt.

Far more serious is the fact that the XMarks tartan is woven in double width and the two halves _do not match_ in the size of the sett. In fact, from the selvedge to the center, one half is almost 3/8" bigger than the other, so you have to fudge the join. I made a kilt years ago from tartan woven by Fraser and Kirkbright's predecessor, and the tartan had the same problem, and I was hoping that the new owners would fix the problem, but this evidently hasn't happened.

And the XMarks tartan is supposed to be 14 oz, but it doesn't have the substantial feel of 14 oz Lochcarron or House of Edgar tartan, and there are visible spaces between the threads. It's almost as if the thread isn't quite heavy enough for the number of threads per inch chosen for the weave.

Anyway. if anyone wants links to other mills for Scottish tartan, I'm happy to provide them, but they will likely sell to you at retail prices.

Cheers,

Barb