"Hard" tartan

[Ryan Ross]

It's funny - the distance shot seems to show the difference more than the closeup. Almost looks like canvas.
Does it have more of a scratchy feel, like Harris Tweed? If so, I'm sold.

The one antique hard tartan kilt that I've actually touched DID feel very much like canvas.

[Jock Scot]

Slightly off topic, but a question for the experts, although Matt has mentioned it in passing here and that is the 11 inch sett. I rather like large setts and whilst I know it does depend on the tartan somewhat, but do larger setts cause problems with the maths and practicalities when it come to pleating to the sett/stripe, number of pleats, depth of pleats, etc amount of cloth needed when compared to say, a more "normal" sized sett in a "standard" 8 yard knife pleated kilt? Perhaps we could use the large sett tartan in your picture here as the example?

[Paul Henry]

Slightly off topic, but a question for the experts, although Matt has mentioned it in passing here and that is the 11 inch sett. I rather like large setts and whilst I know it does depend on the tartan somewhat, but do larger setts cause problems with the maths and practicalities when it come to pleating to the sett/stripe, number of pleats, depth of pleats, etc amount of cloth needed when compared to say, a more "normal" sized sett in a "standard" 8 yard knife pleated kilt? Perhaps we could use the large sett tartan in your picture here as the example?

One of my favourite type of questions! Yes there are lots of variables:

A larger sett could mean deeper pleats, but perhaps almost too deep for practical purposes as it could mean requiring much more yardage
making a kilt very expensive.
Another thing about larger setts that there is often more room for cheating a pleat, that is using a part of the sett that has an identical element in the design, perhaps something as simple as a wide enough band of colour to make the pleat width, which means that the whole width of the sett wouldn't need to be used.
Not all tartan designs are ideally suited to kilt making in all sett sizes, so by changing the sett size sometimes the problem can be solved.

Pleating to the sett uses slightly more fabric than to the stripe, but only a small ammount extra over the width of a full kilt
a really rough and simple calculation if you wanted,a kilt
to the sett ,

25 pleats of 3/4"

with a 7" sett you would need 25 times 7 3/4" = 193 3/4"
with an 11" sett you would need 25 times 11 3/4" = 293 3/4 "
so you would need an extra 3 yards to make it work,
In actual working terms you would be looking to find a way around that as the pleats would be a bit deep , but also it's a huge ammount of extra weight of fabric as well


It seems that some early kilts were not actually "pleated to" anything really, just on the whim of the maker,and while today that might not be acceptable to our eyes, on a very large sett that actually might be a very interesting solution!

It's not always possible to say that a kilt "should" have a certain number of pleats, it does depend on the sett size and the client size,but it would be perfectly possible to have the same number of pleats, with the same tartan, for two completly different clients, simply by adjusting the width of the pleats,slightly wider for the larger man. Things like this mean that 8 yards of fabric can be made to measure for most people.

I think a large sett does look good, partially because the colour bands become more obvious, and the boldness make the kilt really stand out.

The bottom line is that every kiltmaker will spend time working out the best/economic/satisifying arrangement for each and every tartan they use, and almost every tartan has it's own little idiosyncrasis, which is why every kilt that is made individually is unique!

[M. A. C. Newsome]

The finishers are often a different company who wash or dress and finish the cloth, but they don't normally sort out the knots and threads.
All that sort of attention to detail is done in house at the weaving mill, many weavers outsource the finishing part of the process.

Paul is correct, this part of the process is done in house at the mill, and would be done on this unfinished "hard" tartan, as well.

Any knots, etc., would be on the "wrong" side of the cloth, and so while you may discover them there, they would not be visible on the kilt.

Any other mistakes in the weaving would be handled by someone at the mill, and by hand. For example, this is from MacNaughton's Islabank Mill (House of Edgar). They run every inch of the tartan cloth over a large light board, to identify any flaws.


Then those flaws are hand corrected.


This next photo is from Lochcarron in Selkirk. You can see where an erroneous orange thread was accidentally included in the warp, and it's being replaced by the correct green color, being woven in by hand with a needle.

(This was being done across the entire 30+ yard bolt of cloth, by the way).

I don't have any photos of this being done at Dalgliesh, but the process is the same, more or less, at every tartan mill in Scotland.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Thanks for the interesting presentation. I learned a lot. Is hard tartan what older regimental kilts are made from? I know that they're made from very heavy cloth, but I also noticed that the texture is different. I wasn't sure what accounted for that.

Well, that all depends on what you mean by "older." :-) If you look at regimental kilts from the 1790s, for example, then yes they would have been made from hard tartan.

However, I suspect you mean early 20th century, perhaps, and this would not be the case. The heavy cloth used for regimental kilts has been referred to as "horse blanket weight," and I believe was made using a mixture of worsted and saxony yarns. (The worsted in the warp, and saxony in the weft, if I recall). Peter MacDonald would have more information on this than would I.

But the regimental cloth actually has a softer hand to it than this unfinished hard tartan would.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Good question.

Also, The House of Edgar offers a half dozen "Regimental Tartans" that have more "texture" than other tartans. Are those "less finished" in the same sense, but perhaps to a lesser extent, than the "hard tartan" cloth?

No, those tartans are all finished, as usual. They are woven from different types of yarns - I believe some saxony yarns - to give a softer and more full texture. See my previous post.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

It's funny - the distance shot seems to show the difference more than the closeup. Almost looks like canvas.
Does it have more of a scratchy feel, like Harris Tweed? If so, I'm sold.

That's true, I have noticed the same thing. There does seem to be more of a visual difference from far away. I think this is because the cloth does seem to drape differently from the softer finished cloth, and this is visible even when the fabric is on the bolt.

Yes, I guess you could describe it as more of a canvas-like feel. And though I would not call it tweed-like, because it does not have the raised fibers you would typically associate with tweed, it does have that rougher texture.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Slightly off topic, but a question for the experts, although Matt has mentioned it in passing here and that is the 11 inch sett. I rather like large setts and whilst I know it does depend on the tartan somewhat, but do larger setts cause problems with the maths and practicalities when it come to pleating to the sett/stripe, number of pleats, depth of pleats, etc amount of cloth needed when compared to say, a more "normal" sized sett in a "standard" 8 yard knife pleated kilt? Perhaps we could use the large sett tartan in your picture here as the example?

Paul's response is a good one, I'll only add some additional thoughts.

I recall making a kilt in the Matheson tartan once which had a very large sett - I believe 12" or more. This was to be a four yard, box pleated kilt. The other factor was that it was being made for a very thin man.

The sett is rather complex, as well as being large, and at the end of the day I ended up having to pleat it to a random pattern, rather like Paul (correctly) describes many early civilian kilts. I have to say I was very pleased with the end result. It looked very much like many early 19th century and late 18th century kilts I have seen and my client was very pleased with it.

I did another four yard box pleated kilt in the MacDougal tartan (which now belongs to a member of the forum here), which had a large sett repeat. I don't recall how large, but what I ended up doing was pleating to alternate pivots, or every half sett. So the kilt looks pleated to stripe, but different stripes on alternate pleats. Does not look bad at all.

Now with this current Armstrong tartan with an 11" repeat, this will be a kilt for myself and I have not decided exactly what I want to do. I have 6 yards at my disposal. I could do a 4 yard box pleated kilt pleated to the red stripe, in which case I have worked out that I will have only 6 pleats and they will be 3.75" wide. This sounds like very few pleats, and it is, but I have seen historic kilts with as few as 6 very wide box pleats, and have made them this way for clients before.

If I wanted a more narrow pleat, and used all 6 yards I have, I could get a dozen pleats at 2" wide. I could do this either as a knife pleat or a box pleat. I, personally, think that 2" wide is a bit large for a knife pleat, but it works well for a box pleat, so this is likely what I will choose to do.

By contrast, if I were making a 6 yard knife pleated kilt from a tartan with a more average sized sett (7" or so), I could get pleats which were closer to 1" wide and be indistinguishable to most people from a standard 8 yard knife pleated kilt.

So yes, setts that are much larger, or much smaller, than usual can present some interesting pleating challenges. But that's part of the fun of being a kilt maker!

[davidlpope]

Matt,

Since folks have asked about comparisons to "regimental tartan" and if I'm viewing the photos correctly, it appears that the 18oz. HOE Regimental fabric with the "fuzzy" finish is closer to the teasle-raised treatment, rather than the hard tartan treatment.

Is that a closer comparison?

David

[Jock Scot]

This is a fascinating thread and thank you Matt for starting it and your answer, thank you too Paul.