Hello everyone!
How and why did I decide (to try) design my own tartan?
It seems to me that the answer is similar to wearing a kilt, and very simple: I just like it, and I wanted to make something personal and special.
Why new tartan?
The obvious reasons are no connection to Scottish roots, non-clan affiliation and the absence of a tartan related to my family.
To make things better, at the age of 18 I changed my last name, which none of my parents, brothers, sisters have... so I in a way I started a new family line
(which at that consisted of only one member )
The advantage in designing is definitely freedom and creativity in every way, but again it should not be exaggerated, and that's where your advices step in.

The process looked something like this to me: After making the decision to try designing, I read a number of tips and recommendations, about tartan design,
(we’ll see if I learned anything ). At the beginning, I decided on 4 colors, but the first choice was red, white, blue (since these are the colors of the Croatian flag) and black.
The process was neither easy nor simple, at the core of each attempt were certain numbers of threads that represented something related to my family.
After about 10-15 attempts, I I gathered my courage to show my work in public ... and then a dozen more followed, where the noticed "flaws" were corrected.
Comments ranged from: "No!", "Boring!", "Tablecloth!", "To awful!", so I was sometimes happy when I went back to “just” boring.
I finally guessed, a few more minor corrections and that's it ... we got it.
When I finally finished and looked at the size of the sett, it was clear to me that I had greatly exceeded the usual measure of 6 to 8 inches.
After a few days of rest, I decided to make a total turnaround. I came up with the idea to “write” our last name in our tartan.
For a start, this meant a big change of colors, ie the introduction of some that were never even considered as realistic options: black, red, orange and gray.
What follows is the final result, the colors and thickness are the letters of our last name, followed by 2 colors whose thickness is the sum of the digits of my wife's birthday, and then the same for me, and finally the date of our wedding, when we actually became a family.

TartanK1.jpg

TartanK2a.jpg

TartanK3a.jpg

As I said in an earlier post, you have seen everything and anything, and you can help with your comments here.
Colors and seeing them is a subjective thing, I don’t expect everyone to be thrilled with this design, but nor do I expect all comments to be negative either,
don’t hold back in honesty, it’s something I appreciate the most.
In order to direct this topic a bit, I bring a few questions, and your answers will help me in further activities.
1. Have you seen a similar tartan
2. How do you like the color combination/composition
3. To see the kilt of this tartan:
a) You would ask for information about tartan
b) You would cover your eyes with hands so that this image would not stuck in your memory
c) Some other reaction (which?)
4. Your comment/impression of this attempt

Maybe I'll ask some questions later, but this thread is already long enough ...