Why no mottled tartans?

**Tobus** · 11th December 18, 02:20 PM

As I was driving today, I was thinking about tartan options for my planned military box pleat project. I started thinking about how to get a really coarse and rustic cloth, and my mind led me to tweed woven in a tartan pattern. If you Google images on tartan tweed, you'll see some lovely variations of typical clan tartans.

And it got me to wondering. One of the loveliest characteristics of tweed is that it often uses yarns that are "flecked" or vary in colour along their length. Blue threads can vary from light to dark, or from greenish to bluish, for example. Greens may vary from dark green to light green to yellow, or even have other colour wool fibers spun together for an overall green look. When put together as woven cloth, you get an overall colour scheme that is rather uniform when seen from a distance, but up close it explodes with all the variation.

Why haven't the traditional tartan weavers incorporated this concept into a specialised range of tartan colours? We have modern colours, ancient colours, reproduction, muted, weathered, and many other schemes that add a twist to the way that standard setts are viewed. But they all use yarns that are very consistently dyed instead of having some variation or flecking along the strands. Why has no one introduced a colour range that includes yarns with varying colours like the tweeds have? Is it because this is one of the defining characteristics of tweed, and it's a line that cannot be crossed? Would weaving tartan with flecked yarn essentially make it just a twill tweed?

I would think it could be a very popular option, if marketed as a "rustic" colour range.

**Steve Ashton** · 11th December 18, 02:29 PM

The Highland Granite Tartan woven by Lochcarron was the first of the monochrome colored Tartans.

But they twisted a gray yarn with a black yarn to give a very marled appearance. Sort of reminiscent of Aberdeen Granite (the rocks curling stones are made from)

**figheadair** · 11th December 18, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by Tobus

Why haven't the traditional tartan weavers incorporated this concept into a specialised range of tartan colours? We have modern colours, ancient colours, reproduction, muted, weathered, and many other schemes that add a twist to the way that standard setts are viewed. But they all use yarns that are very consistently dyed instead of having some variation or flecking along the strands. Why has no one introduced a colour range that includes yarns with varying colours like the tweeds have? Is it because this is one of the defining characteristics of tweed, and it's a line that cannot be crossed? Would weaving tartan with flecked yarn essentially make it just a twill tweed?

What you are describing is tweed, i.e. a cloth made from a mixtured yarn. And tweed is usually woven in a 2/2 twill.Tartan is made from pure coloured yarn and the best kilting tartan is a worsted cloth, tweed yarn is woolen spun.

**Tobus** · 11th December 18, 03:04 PM

Thanks, I figured as much. I just watched some videos on tweed, and learned that the main difference is that with tweed the wool is dyed first in clumps, usually mixed with other coloured clumps, then mixed, carded/teased/spun into thread and woven, giving the final thread (and finished tweed) the flecked colours. Where worsted wool is dyed after it's already made into a thread (giving it the uniformity). It makes more sense to me now.

What originally got me thinking about tweed was the feel of the cloth and the thickness. I'm seeing references to 18oz tweed cloth, where that weight seems like a unicorn in the regular tartan market. While I concede that tweed is not the best kilting cloth, I do know that some kilts have been made from tweed. I'm wondering if the heavier, thicker, coarser feel of tweed may be more suitable to what I'm after. I wasn't necessarily looking for flecked colours (that was a side-line train of thought), but tweed is available in uniform colours too.