Threads count

[AckZel]

Is there any recommended threads count per square in the tartan to make pleating and aligning squares easy? I was designing a tartan for the Finnish Kilt Association.

[Barb T]

I'm going to take a stab at answering, although it's not clear to me what you mean by "to make pleating and aligning squares easily".

The thread count isn't really an issue for pleating a kilt. What matters is the size of the sett, the nature of the undercheck and overcheck, and, to a certain extent, the measurements of the person you're making the kilt for.

Here's what I mean:

-The sett is not fundamentally a matter of thread count. If a tartan has a section of the sett that is described by 6R2Y6R (i.e., 6 red, 2 yellow, 6 red), the following numbers of threads would give exactly the same sett : 6 red threads, 2 yellow, 6 red OR 12 red threads, 4 yellow, 12 red OR 24 red threads, 8 yellow, 24 red. If the thread size were the same in all three, the sizes of the setts would get progressively bigger in the three examples. But, if the threads got progressively finer in the three examples, you could imagine having a higher thread count but exactly the same sett size in each.

-The size of the sett (the repeat) governs how many pleats you can get into a given length of material (and also the pleat depth). If the sett is 10" and you have 100" of cloth, pleating to the stripe will give 10 pleats, each just under 5" deep (pleating to the sett will give you slightly fewer, slightly deeper pleats). If you're designing a tartan for kilting, a sett of 5" would be very small and a sett of 12" would be very big. If the sett is too small, the pleats will be shallow, and a kilt might not even be able to use up 7 yards of cloth, let alone 8. If the sett is huge, you can't get enough pleats into the back of the kilt, and it looks odd. A sett of 6-9" is ideal.

-The more stripes, the more difficult it is to pleat a kilt if there is any taper at all in the pleats from hip to waist (anyone pleating a kilt will try to taper the pleat in a part of the tartan that is a solid color that is wide enough that the taper doesn't eliminate a stripe from the bottom of the pleat to the top). At the end of this message, I've posted a pic of the Dress MacRae tartan pleated well (first pic) so that the narrow white stripes aren't lost, and one of the same tartan pleated badly (second pic) so that the pleat taper eliminates the narrow white stripes. The problem is that, the more narrow stripes, the harder it is to avoid eliminating them if the pleat tapers. So, if you're designing a tartan for kilting, I'd stay away from a complex bunch of little stripes and squares.

-And, of course, a tartan that is asymmetric is a bigger challenge to make a kilt from than a symmetric one. So, if you're designing a tartan for kilting, design one that is symmetrical (i.e., has pivot points about which the tartan mirrors itself, which is true of 99% of all tartans).

If that's not what you meant, ask again, and I'll try to help!

Barb

[AckZel]

Ok... set of 6-9" is ideal. How many threads there is ABOUT to make that kind of a sett on tartan?

Here is a sample of tartan version 1:

http://www.eskolin.net/tartan1.gif

[Barb T]

It depends entirely on the weight of the tartan. The 16 oz tartan that's sitting on my desk looks to be about 48 threads/inch. But, a light-weight tartan could easily be 60 or 70 threads per inch. As an aside, anyone who does handweaving knows that even the 16 oz tartan has a pretty high thread count compared to what someone weaves on a hand loom, which is why very few people even try to hand weave kilting tartan!

But it's still not clear why you're worrying about that in designing a tartan.

Barb

[AckZel]

So, it's no difference for a kiltmaker if there's bigger or smaller squares?

[Barb T]

Yes, it does matter. See my post above about little squares and stripes. What I'm trying to say (and obviously not saying it very well!) is that you could specify 8 threads of red and get a square 1/8" across if the threads were heavy and 1/16" across if the threads were light. If you design the tartan by number of threads, you can't a priori know how big the squares and stripes will be unless you know how many threads per inch will be in the fabric, and that depends on the weight of the fabric and also how a mill sets up its looms.

Barb

[AckZel]

ok, I'll just design the tartan and let the kiltmaker do the pleating

[Barb T]

Just make sure that, when you have the tartan woven, that you specify to the mill the approximate sett size that you'd like to have. You won't have complete freedom, but, particularly if the tartan is relatively simple, you should be able to ask them to scale the tartan so that the sett size is reasonable for kilting. It's perfectly possible to design and weave a piece of tartan that's impossible to make a decent kilt out of, no matter how good your kiltmaker is! You don't want to wind up in that boat.
Barb

[AckZel]

It wouldn't be new for me to get something really expensive and useless...