Tartan of the month - December: What do you see?

[figheadair]

Very Christmas colours Thoughts and ideas?

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Peter,

It's hard to tell due to the image size, but this looks like a plain weave to me. Can you verify?

[NeightRG]

It almost looks like there are holes around the edges - as if is were once sewn into a piece/garment, and the stitching was removed - instead of a random scrap being cut out.
The symmetry also says this.
Any chance of a closeup on the two holes near the top left corner?

[figheadair]

Peter,

It's hard to tell due to the image size, but this looks like a plain weave to me. Can you verify?

Matt,

Replaced the original image with a higher res one. Should'nt be too difficult for you as you have a record of it and so better keep your powder dry for a while.

[creagdhubh]

Muirhead?

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Thanks, Peter, for the more high res photo. I can clearly see the twill weave now.

Quite right, I won't leap in. :-) Although I do tend to be an interested observer to these threads, and thank you greatly for doing them!

[figheadair]

Muirhead?

Nope

[xman]

Attractive sett. Excellent colours. Very Wilsons looking. Wonderful balance. It looks like five colours to me, but there could be a Yellow as well as a pale Green. Herringbone edge up top which appears to end in the Light Blue rather then the Dark Blue therefore breaking the sett right at the edge. Early to mid 19th century then? Have I got that right?

Are those staples I see in the top right?

It looks like there's some kind of stitching around the outside edge of the piece which I can't imagine a use for. The buckling of the fabric in the bottom corners is almost certainly caused by this.

It also looks like it might be a lighter weave and not that large a piece. May we have the dimensions?

There are also some interesting little 'jigs' in the vertical weave. Not quite a full herringbone turn around, but perhaps just for one thread and then back to the established twill weave. I'm not sure if this is intentional or a function of the loom or something else.

[Cygnus]

The first thing I thought when I saw the image was of a patchwork quilt square, what with the size of it and the stitching all around.

I don't think those are staples - at first I thought they were holes, but in the larger image they look more like long stitches of white thread.

Why would somebody sew all the way around a small piece of tartan, and what would those two pairs of long white stitches be for?

[MacBean]

I've no idea, but I do think it's beautiful.