Tartan being designed--your opinon please

[Barb T]

Just a couple of "kiltmaker thoughts". If you are considering pleating to the stripe, and you have a particular stripe in mind, make sure that it is the right width for pleating to the stripe. Your design 1 will pleat well to the white stripe, but probably not to the purple stripe, because the green looks like it will be too narrow to make up the whole rest of the pleat (i.e., part of the pleat will have to extend into the adjacent light color at the hips and will likely be lost as the pleat tapers toward the top of the kilt). See this thread for an illustration of the potential problem:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/p...454/index.html

You might also run into a similar problem if you wanted to pleat the second design to the greenish yellow stripe.

As you're designing, figure that pleats will be 3/4-7/8" across at the hips and, depending upon your waist/hip differential, may taper significantly toward the top of the kilt. To get a rough idea, divide your waist size in half, and divide that by 27 (a typical # of pleats in a kilt).

[Detroitpete]

Just a couple of "kiltmaker thoughts". If you are considering pleating to the stripe, and you have a particular stripe in mind, make sure that it is the right width for pleating to the stripe. Your design 1 will pleat well to the white stripe, but probably not to the purple stripe, because the green looks like it will be too narrow to make up the whole rest of the pleat (i.e., part of the pleat will have to extend into the adjacent light color at the hips and will likely be lost as the pleat tapers toward the top of the kilt). See this thread for an illustration of the potential problem:

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/p...454/index.html

You might also run into a similar problem if you wanted to pleat the second design to the greenish yellow stripe.

As you're designing, figure that pleats will be 3/4-7/8" across at the hips and, depending upon your waist/hip differential, may taper significantly toward the top of the kilt. To get a rough idea, divide your waist size in half, and divide that by 27 (a typical # of pleats in a kilt).

Great advice Barb! Thanks!

[Kilted-Keith]

The Top one with the white stripe is excellent, the second one seems to be a bit bland.

When I am looking at a tartan, it is both the colors and the history of the design or story behind the colors that makes it appealing.

Is there a reason or story behind the colors?

[Detroitpete]

The Top one with the white stripe is excellent, the second one seems to be a bit bland.

When I am looking at a tartan, it is both the colors and the history of the design or story behind the colors that makes it appealing.

Is there a reason or story behind the colors?

Bland is right--it was an attempt to see how I could get a muted appearance with the color choices I had on the software. You'll notice the first one has a few extra colors missing in the second.

This is an attempt at a tartan in honor of my grand father and as a surname tartan. My grand father was a fairly accomplished amature historian and I wanted to choose colors that spoke to the stories he knew of our family's past.

The blue and grey are because we were a divided family during the US Civil war with members fighting on both sides. The green is to reflect our homelands of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Scandinavia and later, Virginia and West Virginia. The white line is to represent all in our family who committed to public service as lawyers, judges, council members, clergy etc. The red line is to represent that each generation in my family has had men and women who served in the armed services. Finally, the purple/lavendar line is a remembrance of my grand father's wife. My grand mother loved lavendar and would plant it where ever she lived. She would dry the flowers and place the bundles throughout her houses. The color and scent remind my family of her.