Who can weave my tartan?

[Mel1721L]

I can tell you from experience
That if you want anything other than very light weight or silk woven as single width -
Or you are willing to commission a hand weaver -
That the absolute minimum amount of fabric that any of the UK based Tartan weaving companies is willing, or able, to do is 11 meters of double-width fabric. Most require much more than that as a minimum. One weaving company keeps telling me that the absolute minimum order that they can fit on their looms is 65 meters. Truthfully I don't think that mill wants to do custom runs at all.

FYI - 11 meters is just under 3 kilts worth.

I feared that may be the case.

[Mel1721L]

I registered my own tartan sometime ago and was getting ready to have it woven when I was laid low by health problems and the ensuing costs...

As Steve said, I was looking at enough tartan to last me my lifetime (unless I decided to upholster all my furniture in it as well), which I am fine with. If your tartan isn't as exclusive as a personal tartan, your best bet is probably to get together a number of people that want some and order it all together.

If you're dead set on a small run, Matt Newsome at New House Highland has been known to do kilts in custom tartans, though I know he's not taking orders now while he catches-up on his queue. USA Kilts will also do custom-woven kilts, but they all appear to be eight-yard kilts.

It's not going to be cheap, but the group order is probably best as the more you order, the less you'll pay per metre!

I'd need to find a load of Welsh Powells who want to wear kilts. Not very promising I guess.

[Mel1721L]

I have had very good experience with D C Dalgiesh for single kilt lengths of heavy weight custom woven tartan. I've had 6 kilt lengths woven in the past year, and the most recent just arrived a couple weeks ago. They've all been beautiful, and I've had absolutely no issues of any kind. It's not cheap, but if you need just one kilt length, it's the way to go, in my experience. An 8-yard kilt length, delivered, currently runs $550-600.

Worth asking. Do you have a contact link please?

[Mel1721L]

After all your woes with the original Powell kilt I hope that all goes well with this endeavour and you can finally obtain a properly made kilt in a worthy tartan cloth.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

I won't hold my breath. I'm still to blame apparently for wearing it too often, but I have this option or the option to buy the cloth at £45 a yard I think it was.

[Mel1721L]

Barb is (as usual) absolutely right.

And sorry Steve, but I'm a bit disappointed to see you circulating such incorrect information. As forum owner I'd have expected you to be more aware of the facts about UK weavers. And if you couldn't 'confirm or deny' you could easily have checked with me directly first!

So yes, to address the OP's question, at DC Dalgliesh we are very much still weaving in-house on our traditional single width loom in several weights of wool and silk, which we can produce as little as four metres. This includes our superb 16oz worsted wool with the traditional kilting selvedge that should be ideal for your needs. Please just contact our team for advice.

To clarify about the double width fabrics, there's been a lot of of nonsense spread about, much of it by competitors or others with an axe to grind. The fact is that we no longer weave on the double width shuttle looms as even after a lot of restoration effort the old machines simply couldn't maintain the quality standards we wanted to promise every customer.

The weaving business has always been a collaboration of skills. Different businesses have always resolved that jigsaw in different ways. Some have in-house dying, some don't. Some have in-house spinning, some don't. Some stock their own yarns, some don't. Same for finishing, winding, warping, weaving, and darning, etc. All we're doing is to reshape the business we rescued to be as fit as possible for the demands of today's customers, with the highest possible product.

But we're still producing fabrics of exactly the same quality as ever, other than for the selvedge (and that's something we're working on). We'd have been outsourcing anyway (as most mills also do!) as we've been increasing the range of qualities we are now producing (such as tweeds and cashmeres) and the volumes.

The gain to our customers is that quality is more consistent, timescales are faster, and our volume fabric pricing is much lower. We're now very competitive like-for-like at almost every quantity. So I'm fairly proud of what we've achieved so far.

Can you give me a contact link or email please?

[Mel1721L]

Crunch the numbers, a kilt length piece of single width from Dalgliesh will cost you more than 11 meters of custom weave from Marton Mills. You can make three kilts with what you get from Marton Mills, but only one with what you'd get from Dalgliesh.

The draw back is if you only want one kilt, and don't expect a use of the extra tartan you'd get from Martan Mills, then Dalgliesh may be the best way to go. When I ordered my custom weave from Marton Mills, I planned on having perhaps three kilts made, each in a differnt style of pleating, or perhaps sharing the cloth with family members.


As for Scottish weavers, my only direct -- and indirect -- has been with the Elliot firm. Robert Elliot is one of the nicest guys to deal with you ever will encounter.

It will come down to cost at the end of the day and it may be that I'll just get the cloth from Wales Tartan Centre.

[Mel1721L]

My brother and I are gettting a custom weave through House of Edgar. Minimum runs; yes. Pricing acceptable.

Can you give me an idea please?

[Cygnus]

I'd need to find a load of Welsh Powells who want to wear kilts. Not very promising I guess.

Do you have any family that might be interested? If not, you could always post a thread here asking if there's any interest or even check-out some of the various genealogy forums online for Welsh Powells that might be interested in a combined run.

If not, it sounds like short lengths are more of a possibility than I thought!

Good luck!

[Pleater]

For some time I have been seeing how the skills which a few generations ago were common knowledge are now becoming rarer.
Such a basic thing as a reinforced waistband is dressmaking, not even tailoring - yet your first Powell kilt was made without anything to take the strain of the fastenings.

I coined the description 'delusions of adequacy' for a certain middle manager I had the misfortune to work with - it seems equally apt to anyone who would market themselves as a kilt maker without the necessary experience of garment making.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Barb T]

...it seems equally apt to anyone who would market themselves as a kilt maker without the necessary experience of garment making.

I totally agree. Basically, that's why I wrote The Art of Kiltmaking.