Hand purled plaid

[mookien]

Gentlefolk, and especially AKScott: Below is my first attempt to include a picture. If it is successful, it will be of my Blaylock-tartan, braided plaid.



If this looks like it should, I will post a few more pictures of increasing detail around the braids.

[mookien]

Wonders never cease. For the above picture the plaid was "pleated" to one white stripe to avoid the "dreaded lawn-chair effect". Just kidding. Actually, the one fold seemingly hides the seamy seam sewn to splice the two single-width swathes.

The following three pictures zoom in on increasing detail in the braided Blaylock plaid, as follows:

1. The finishing on the rather rounded corner. Each braid is very close to 3" long.



2. More braid detail. Note the predominantly red braid with a thin black twist. The tartan threadcount at that point is R32K4R10. It appears that about 4 threads are used from the R10 stripe. If so, the braid is composed of 40 threads.



3. Zooming in a bit more, you can see the many threads that fan into a single braid (about 1/2" on each side). This is most clearly seen in the red, black, and yellow braid.



The Blaylock tartan was designed by Dr. Philip D. Smith, Jr., while a student at George Pepperdnell College, now Pepperdine University.

[AKScott]

The swatches I ordered December 18th finally came in. I am going to order a few more in the more popular universal setts in the fullness of time.

I am very curious to see a good close-up photo of "traditional" purling. I have a hunch having random amounts of different colors in each purl might be quite pleasing to the eye; I want to see it so I can figure it out and try it on one or another swatch in my own workshop.

This one is LochCarron Strome (16oz) Clan Scott modern Green.

The swatch looks really really dark compared to fringed:



Diving right in without counting first I purled one side six threads at a time, 3+3. Looks OK, but I don't like the effect of alternating single solid red purl versus two barber pole red purls at the other end of the sett. I don't know if there is anything wrong with it, I just don't like it.



I noticed there was hardly any contrast between the green, black and blue when I combined those colors in in individual purls, so I did the other edge of the swatch, 4+4 style, mostly monochrome. The narrow yellow stripes are four threads wide, but the thread count came out even.

[AKScott]

I tried going just 4+4 end to end on this one. Turns out the thread count on the Lochcarron Strome (pictured here) is different from the House of Edgar pictured on the previous pages.

I started in the middle of the sett and went 4+4, 4+4 all the way to the end. It looks OK.



And this is an example of what I would like to see of a traditionally purled example from someone's existing collection. You know how every once in a while you see a North American kid in a Japanese car with an enormous window decal that may or may not be the Chinese symbol for prosperity? I don't want to be that guy.



Working top left to bottom right, the individual purls pictured here are green four plus green 4 (G4, G4). And then two more at G4+G4. The next is one leg G4, the other leg is G2 plus Red 2, thus G6R2. The fifth one is R6G2.

The next one is G6 + White 2, I think you get the idea. I would really like to see a picture like this of work done by someone who knew what they were doing. My pics are just from trying to figure it out myself.

I am off to see if LochCarron and House of Edgar make different registry numbers for the clan Scott modern red.