BEWARE - Fraser and Kirkbright Hunting Stewart

[kiltedwolfman]

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I beg to differ, both the kilts in the above photo's were made the way I previously mentioned using 16 oz. They both have 1" pleat reveals and as can be seen still show some of the surrounding tartan. By choosing carefully where I join the fabric I am able to maintain pleat size, depth, and am able to cut the fabric as I would for a symetrical tartan. Would this work for every tartan? Probably not, but it sure does with this one.

[Alan H]

Ah, I see what you're getting at, now.

OK, I don't know where you got the tartan for those kilts, if you made those kilts. You can take it up with Matt Newsome as to whether there are different weaves of the tartan available which will work as you say they do. I have no idea.. If you're working with Locharron cloth, or maybe some other weaver, then heck sure....you're probably right.

But the Fraser and Kirkbright stuff which is currently...as of this writing.... on their website in the "Remnants" section, will not work that way. You cannot measure equal distances up from the selvedge on that fabric, and then join the pieces. That's all I mean to say. Other Hunting Stewart weaves, from other mills.....I know nuttin'.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Alan,

All Hunting Stewart, regardless of the mill it comes from, will be woven asymmetrically, because it is an asymmetrical tartan. So when supplying cloth to kilt makers, it is customary to supply it as a single width length -- this is true for a host of common asymmetrical tartans, including Buchanan, Old MacMillan, Campbell of Argyle, MacAlpine, etc.

I get what kiltedwolfman is saying -- if you are pleating this to stripe (which would be alternate red/yellow stripe in this case), you could, in theory, make a kilt by splitting and joining the double width cloth. The pattern still would match vertically but not horizontally. However, the fact that the pattern did not match would be hidden in the pleats, and no one would see the under apron, so it could be done.

Both the red and yellow stripes have a good bit of green on either side of them. So long as your pleats were not so wide as to show more of the pattern on either side of the stripe, you could do this. I have made kilts in Hunting Stewart both from Lochcarron's 16 oz strome, and from House of Edgar's 18 oz regimental weight, and in both cases the sett size was large enough that even in a four yard box pleated kilt -- which has very wide pleats -- the tartan could be pleated to the stripe and not show anything but green on either side of the stripe.

It could be that your F&K cloth is woven with a much, much smaller sett size, which means in your pleats you are seeing more of the pattern. But that would have to be a pretty small sett repeat.

The other thing that could be going on with your particular cloth is that it could have been woven so that the pattern of the sett was not laid out evenly along the warp of the cloth; meaning that the pattern of the tartan on one edge of the cloth does not match the pattern on the other edge. In this case, you could not cut and join the fabric as kiltedwolfman says -- you couldn't even if it were a normal symmetrical tartan. Because then you would have a mismatch in both the horizontal and vertical aspects of the tartan. You'd have to hem one or both lengths to make it work.

It is possible that F&K laid out the tartan this way when they wove the cloth, thinking that as Hunting Stewart is an asymmetrical tartan, no one would be needing to cut and join the tartan from double width cloth anyway, so why bother? Most woolen mills, however, would still lay the tartan out evenly across the warp, because even though the tartan might not need to be cut and joined, you would still want multiple kilts made from the same length of tartan to match one another. If you were making a bunch of Hunting Stewart kilts for a band from this cloth, for example, half the kilts would end up with the tartan ending at one point at the bottom of their kilts, and the other half of the kilts would be different. No good.

Of course, if F&K were not weaving this cloth with kilts in mind -- which is entirely likely as this is a light weight wool blend -- they may not have given that any consideration. I have had to deal with similar issues when making kilts from other cloth which was not woven specifically as kilt cloth; some tweeds for example.

[Blupiper]

OK, follow along with me for now. I have checked the F&K Hunting Stewart fabric that I have and, as everyone has said, it is asymetrical. Laid out, it's around 60 inches wide. Folded in half, it is around 30.5 inches wide. If I am going to need a finished length of my kilt at about 22 or 23 inches, could I sew the two halves together with an offset, so the tartan lines up horizonally? It seems, from what Alan has said, that the bottom will need a hem, as the selvage is 'iffy.' The offset would take up about 2 and a half inches, the hem could be an inch and the finished edge on the top would take up some more. The math: 23+2.5+1+1=27.5. This is less than the 30.5 inch width that I am working with, even minus the offset. Is there a problem with my logic? Thanks to all for their help.

JMB

[sydnie7]

Don't forget you need part of that center strip for a waistband -- sounds as if you might have just enough width left for that but double-check.

[TheBrus]

Post deleted.

[Alan H]

I surprised that this thread has gotten as much attention as it has! I wish that I still had some uncut, full-width to photograph to illustrate my point.



Here is an image "borrowed" from the House of Edgar...



OK, on the Fraser and Kirkbright tartan, actually within the selvedge on both sides, is a red stripe. However, on one side of the fabric, the next next pattern, "moving into the cloth" from the selvedge is the blue and black set of stripes. Over on the other side of the cloth, the next pattern "moving into the cloth" from the selvedge, is the four black lines.

So what happens when you cut out, say, 24 inch wide lengths, measured in from the selvedged edge, and then reverse them and try to join them edge-to-edge, is a mismatch where the "blue/black lines" encounters the "four black lines". The red and yellow stripes match up just fine, it's the "blue/black" and the "four black lines" sections that do not match.

[Alan H]

This is what you get if you cut 24 inches up from one selvedge.....then 24 inches up from the other selvedge.... and then join the pieces FROM THE FRASER AND KIRKBRIGHT cloth that is currently in their "Remnants" section. I make no claims about what will happen if you buy Hunting Stewart cloth made from any other weaver, or from Fraser and Kirkbright at any other time. Other people can speak to that issue.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Thanks, Alan, that clarifies it. So in addition to the usual consideration one must have when dealing with an asymmetrical tartan from any mill, this Hunting Stewart cloth is also NOT laid out evenly along the width of the cloth, meaning the selvage on one side will not match the selvage on the other. The only way around this is to hem the cloth, as you have noted.

[The Wizard of BC]

Hi Alan,

Just to clarify for you as I see you came down pretty hard on kiltedwolfman in your post #12 to this thread. You said "OK, I don't know where you got the tartan for those kilts, if you made those kilts."

It is the "if you made those kilts." part that I am going to take issue with.

Kiltedwolfman is Jackson, my business partner. He did indeed make those kilts. Not all of them granted, but he did make many of them.

As he has been working with the Stewart Hunting Tartan for quite some time, and has made more kilts from that one Tartan than most have made in total, I can assure you that if he says that it works, you can take his words to the bank.

Granted, the fabric we make the Regimental Kilts for the Canadian Scottish Regiment is nothing like the ultra-light weight F&K remnant you bought.
Is was specially woven for us by Marton Mills, in their Jura weight. We specified that the yellow line should be a specific distance from each selvedge. This resulted in a double yellow in the center of the bolt.

I'm sorry but the remnant bin fabric you bought was never intended for kilts and was in the remnant bin because it was not kilt quality. I suggest you should have expected that seeing as you have experience with buying from the F&K remnant bin.

The fact remains however, that just because you got a bad length of fabric, does not give you a right to disparage or doubt the word of another kiltmaker.

I think that you owe Jackson an apology.