Thread count in a sett?

[Andrew Breecher]

I'm playing around with designing some tartans (just for fun at the moment, since I don't have the money to go any further than that), but I'm not sure how to relate what I see on the screen with how the tartan will actually look. Other than pulling out a magnifying glass, does anyone know how many threads wide an "average" sett is? Or at least of a tartan I can see someone wearing, so I know how large the pattern is.

Andrew.

[Barb T.]

Ok. Here's the short story. Any tartan sett can be scaled. The only thing you have to remember is that the _minimum_ number of threads in a color stripe is 2, and all color stripes have to be in multiples of 2 threads. So, if you know the proportions in the sett, and you decide on how many threads will be in the smallest stripe, you can figure out the number of threads in a full sett. Then, the _size_ of the sett will depend on the number of threads per inch in the woven tartan (which, in part, is dependent on the thread size, with smaller thread counts for coarser threads). Lochcarron's 16 oz tartan has about 48 threads per inch.

Does that answer the question?

Barb

[Andrew Breecher]

Perfectly, thank you.

Andrew.