Mull Millenium kilt - the geologist's tartan!

[Barb T]

As many of you know, I'm a geologist as well as a kiltmaker. Although there is no occupational tartan for geologists, the Mull Millenium tartan is about as close as you can come to a geologist's tartan. Designed by Rosalind Jones (who was a geologist from the Isle of Mull) and Peter MacDonald, the tartan is based on the geology of the Isle of Mull. It's quite a beautiful and unusual tartan, and I've just finished a kilt for a customer in a custom weave of the tartan. Thought I'd share a pic:



The colors in the Isle of Mull tartan are based on the geology of Mull. Here's the way Rosalind described it:

"The Isle of Iona is represented by green and white for its famous green and white marble. Navy blue surrounds representing the sea dividing Iona from Mull. The Isle of Mull is embodied by five colors representing a cross section from Fionnphort in the west through to Glen More at Mull's centre. Starting with the beautiful pink Caledonian Ross of Mull granite, grey follows for the Moine schists at Bunessan and the Jurassic shales at Carsaig. Black represents the Tertiary basalt lava flows which overlie Mull's ancient basement rocks. Yellow depicts Mull's unique ring dyke, finally dark green represents dolerites and gabbros found in Mull's mountainous heart."

It's the only truly "geological" tartan I know of. For those of you non-geologists, when Rosalind refers to a "cross section from Fionnphort in the west through to Glen More at Mull's centre", she's referring to a geological cross section, a vertical slice view that shows the geology below the surface along a particular geographic line.

Oh - and for anyone out there who is a newbie and wondering what the big white stitches are, they are basting stitches that I leave in for shipping so that the pleats don't get wonky in the mail. The customer will carefully remove them before wearing the kilt!!