Favorite Mill?

[figheadair]

This gives me a pretty good idea of what I'm dealing with, thank you! Mine is 254 threads a sett so should be right around the 6" mark. It is also all even numbers which should make it simpler to scale and I'll probably leave that determination to the weaver.

Thanks, guys!

Beware of unintended consequences. Simply multiplying a sett proportionally may result in some stripes being visually too dominant, this is particularly the case with colours like while, yellow and similar brighter colours. Historically, certainly since the late 18th century, setts have been altered disproportionally whilst retaining their overall structure. As an example, here’s an example of four settings of the Macdonald tartan form Wilsons of Bannockburn’s 1819 Key Pattern Book.

Top tip – Before agreeing to proceed, make sure that you get a graphic or threadcount from your weaver of choice that you can get printed to confirm the sett size.

Sett Size.jpg

[Barb T]

...as long as the ratio of the number of yarns per color, and the pattern the colors appear in, remain the same, the Tartan is unchanged. This is one of the reasons that Tartan designers will often say that you should have no color stripe of just one yarn, and if possible, you have stripes or blocks of colors with even numbers of yarns. This allows you to halve or double the Sett easily without changing the design.

Another reason for not having a color stripe with just a single thread is a function of the twill weave of typical kilting tartan. Weft threads go over two, under two, and the over-two-under-two steps one thread to the left with each weft thread. If you have a color with only one thread (on the right in the image below), the effect is conspicuously dot-dash. With two threads, that effect is minimized (on left in image below).



How does this look in a tartan? Although a double-thread line is not, in fact continuous, it looks more continuous in a woven piece. In the pic below, I've taken a scrap of Volcano tartan and pulled one thread from one of the three two-thread red stripes. The two-thread stripe looks quite continuous, whereas the single-thread stripe is a dot-dash pinstripe.



And, as much as I adore the Volcano tartan (my fav EVER), the sett is very large - about 10 1/2". The fact that there are several 2-thread stripes in the sett means that there is literally no way to weave the sett any smaller without changing the proportions of the tartan. Peter spoke of unintended consequences, and that is one of the unintended consequences of having a large sett with some very narrow stripes.

I've also made several kilts from the gorgeous tartan below. It's the Ancient Stewart, Old Sett, and it has a whopping sett size of over 16". The red stripe in black, however, is a two-thread stripe, so there's nothing a weaver can do to make the sett smaller, short of changing the proportions.



But, the red stripe does occur twice per sett, so, for that element, the tartan has a manageable pleating sett size of 8". There are literally no other elements that occur twice per sett. Here's a kilt I made years ago in the Weathered Stewart, Old Sett: