Tartan from D.C. Dalgliesh

[Barb T]

Last week, I promised to post info on tartan from D.C. Dalgiesh in Selkirk, Scotland.

Their K7 weight of tartan is 11-12 oz and is a terrific weight for a light to medium weight man's kilt or a dancer's kilt. The fabric is beautifully woven and has a nice hard finish. As you can see from the tartan lists below, they specialize in dress tartans (most of the dancers you see at games have Dalgliesh tartan kilts) and in what they call "reproduction" tartans (what most other mills call weathered tartan). They are also one of the only mills that will weave a single kilt length of custom fabric in either their 11-12 oz or in 16 oz., single width. I've had them weave several pieces, and it has always been beautiful stuff. If you want double width, you need to order a min of 30 yards.

You can email them at kenneth@dcdalgliesh.co.uk or call Angie to order at 011-44-1-750-20781 (that number also includes the country code calling from the States). They do take credit cards now.

Cheers,

Barb

[way2fractious]

Barb, thank you very much for the information. Are these prices good for ANY individual, licensed kiltmaker or not? And what are normal shipping charges to the U.S., east coast or west coast?

(Now those of us bitten with the kiltmaking bug can join in the addiction with wild abandon.)

[Barb T]

As far as I know, they are happy to sell to anyone at the prices listed, and I'm not sure what air mail prices are right now, to be honest.

To my knowledge, there really isn't any such thing as a "licensed kiltmaker", in the way that there are licensed professional geologists, for example. You don't have to have a license to practice kiltmaking, although, if you go to the Keith Kilt School, you can earn their certification, if you think that such certification is valuable. There's also a Kiltmakers Guild in Scotland, but, again, you don't have to be a member to practice kiltmaking. And, although it started out as being open only to Keith School graduates, I'm virtually certain that it's now open to others.

That's my understanding, anyway. I hope if I'm wrong about any of this that someone will post a correct version!

Barb

[Iolaus]

What does "Rep. Cols." stand for?

[Barb T]

"Reproduction colors". Think "weathered". If you take a modern tartan, the repro/weathered tartans have the following: slate blue replaces navy, khaki replaces dark green, a dull mustard color replaces yellow, a clay red replaces red, and so on.

Barb

[pdcorlis]

Barb

So, if I designed a tartan I could send them the information and have them weave just 6 - 8 yards of single width for me?

[Barb T]

Yup - and Mr. Dalgliesh is actually quite good at helping design tartans, but I'm sure he would charge you a bit extra for that.

Barb

[HeathBar]

For those interested the exchange rate is about 1.89 (includes avg. 2% credit card mark up). So GBP 17.50 = USD 33.08.

Barb,
What is the difference between K/1 and F/1?

[Iolaus]

"Reproduction colors". Think "weathered". If you take a modern tartan, the repro/weathered tartans have the following: slate blue replaces navy, khaki replaces dark green, a dull mustard color replaces yellow, a clay red replaces red, and so on.

Barb

And they'll do that for any Modern tartan?

The reason I ask is that I've always felt that the Modern McKillop tartan was too bright for my taste, and there seems to be no "Ancient" version available, but if it can be muted, I might think harder about getting a tank.

[RockyR]

I've used them before several times for custom orders. Product has always been good quality. Customer service is average, but acceptable if you need a custom tartan woven for 1 kilt. I'd use them MORE if they had a swatch book to send me.

One small correction... I think the minimum for double width orders is 16 M. That's what I ordered for the German National. When it got here, I was very pleased with it.