expert opinion vs professional kilt maker

**BThomHie** · 21st March 13, 06:33 PM

I recently purchased a 16oz Lochcarron Lamont Ancient 8yd Kilt pleated to the stripe, from a shop with an excellent reputation. ( I will post pics in a bit). The kilt was "made in Scotland".
Made to measure, well constructed, feels great.
The issue arose as i was reading The Art of Kilt Making by our contributing member Barbara Tweksbury. She stresses the right and wrong side of the fabric, direction of the twill, as important part of sewing a kilt.
Ms Barbara lays out her fabric with the twill running lower Right to top Left. On page 53 she includes a photo that shows the twill of the kilt " running the wrong way", Lower Left to top Right
My kilt was constructed with the twill running "the wrong way". The twill runs from lower Left to top Right. The twill runs up and out of the pleat vs up and into the pleat.... Hmmmm.....

The question for opinion is...
Should I be happy with what I have and just make sure I make my kilts the "right" way.
Or
Should I ask the shop owner who has a reputation as knowledgeable, if he has an opinion about the direction of the twill?

LOL ... I will admit that my greatest fear is that a couple of you guys will see me in a crowd and make jokes about the grain of my cloth :-)

**artificer** · 21st March 13, 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by BThomHie

I recently purchased a 16oz Lochcarron Lamont Ancient 8yd Kilt pleated to the stripe, from a shop with an excellent reputation. ( I will post pics in a bit). The kilt was "made in Scotland".
Made to measure, well constructed, feels great.
The issue arose as i was reading The Art of Kilt Making by our contributing member Barbara Tweksbury. She stresses the right and wrong side of the fabric, direction of the twill, as important part of sewing a kilt.
Ms Barbara lays out her fabric with the twill running lower Right to top Left. On page 53 she includes a photo that shows the twill of the kilt " running the wrong way", Lower Left to top Right
My kilt was constructed with the twill running "the wrong way". The twill runs from lower Left to top Right. The twill runs up and out of the pleat vs up and into the pleat.... Hmmmm.....

The question for opinion is...
Should I be happy with what I have and just make sure I make my kilts the "right" way.
Or
Should I ask the shop owner who has a reputation as knowledgeable, if he has an opinion about the direction of the twill?

LOL ... I will admit that my greatest fear is that a couple of you guys will see me in a crowd and make jokes about the grain of my cloth :-)

Nobody is going to notice the direction of your twill. So long as the inner 'finished' side and outer side don't have any major differences between them I wouldn't sweat it.

Somewhere on XMarks there's a picture of (if I remember correctly) Lord Lovat with his apron reversed. The outer apron had most likely been damaged, so the kilt was rebuilt with the inner apron now serving duty as the outer apron.

Sometimes we over-analyze things here.

ith:

**M. A. C. Newsome** · 21st March 13, 07:47 PM

The answer lies in the fact that your kilt is made from Lochcarron cloth, the twill lines of which run in the opposite direction than what is usually expected. It has to do with the particular looms the cloth is woven on.

I recently completed a kilt made from House of Edgar Nevis range cloth which is also woven with the twill running opposite.

The important thing is that the kilt be made with the right side of the cloth out, so that there will be no visible flaws in the fabric. There is nothing magical about the twill direction per se.

**MacMillans son** · 21st March 13, 07:48 PM

Different mills use different types of looms which results in the difference in direction of the weave. Lochcarron runs lower left to upper right as you noted, House of Edgar and DC Dagliesh run the other way around. Write side wrong side refers to the side in which the thread ends have terminated and finished, usually resulting in some small knots on the surface of the fabric, many times it's difficult to tell right side from wrong as there are not many visible knots. Don't sweat it!

Mathew beat me to the post! The House of Edgar I was referencing (the only one I have experience with) is their 13 oz Old and Rare fabric. Shows that even within the same mill there are differences!

**The Wizard of BC** · 21st March 13, 11:30 PM

To add even further confusion to this issue of Twill direction.

The Twill direction is a product of the loom used. And some mills have looms that weave a right hand Twill, side by side, with looms that have a left hand Twill.

In general, fabric woven on a modern rapier loom will have the twill running opposite to an older loom.

So don't worry about the direction of the Twill lines. I even made a kilt once where the only way to make it was to join the two pieces at the center back with the Twill running in one direction on the left and the other on the right. No one but me ever knew.
Even an expert and experienced kiltmaker did not see it till I pointed it out.

The important thing, as has been mentioned before, is that the kiltmaker knew which the good side of the fabric was, and put the good side out.

Which is the good side you may ask? Well if you ever find a small knot or snag looking thing inside your kilt you may be looking at what we call a 'slub'. This is just what it looks like. A knot, snag, or small thicker part of one yarn. When fabric is inspected they look for these slubs and with a special needle they push them all to the 'wrong' side of the fabric.

In the old days these flaws in fabric would be marked with a small white or contrasting color string tied at the selvedge to alert the cutter to watch out for the flaw and lay his patterns accordingly.

Hence the phrase "with no strings attached" meant a bolt of fabric with no hidden flaws.

**Paul Henry** · 21st March 13, 11:46 PM

One of the first things I do when I get a length of fabric is to open it out on a table and look at both sides to see which is better, sometimes if you run your hand over the surface you can pick up any knots or slubs more easily. I then decide which is the better face, it's not always the same even from the same weaver, so as everyone has said as long as the best fabric face has been used on the outside I wouldn't worry about the twill direction. These days it is often very hard to tell the difference between the sides. So enjoy your kilt and wear it well, there is nothing wrong with it!

**Domehead** · 22nd March 13, 11:54 AM

This thread is why XMTS is great!

**Barb T** · 22nd March 13, 03:44 PM

Back when I wrote the book, hardly any of the mills were using modern rapier looms. The tartan I was buying at that time even from Lochcarron had the traditional turned selvedge, and the right side of the fabric had what a weaver would call a right hand twill (which, because of the orientation of the warp in a kilt means that the twill diagonals down from right hip to left apron corner). So, the traditional orientation of the twill is as indicated in book. Once the switch was made to rapier looms and tuck-in selvedges, the right side of the fabric now has an opposite twill diagonal, and the slubs are on the traditional "right side" of the fabric. So, all of us do what Paul Henry indicates in his post - we look at the fabric and see where the slubs are. If they can't be easily worked through to the other side, I flip the tartan and don't worry about the twill diagonal.