Selvedge: how to know where the tartan pattern stops?

[cadilhac]

Howdy Rabble!

I'm about to order some fabric from Scotweb (D.C. Dalgliesh) of a custom tartan. How could I know how the selvedge edge will look like, with respect to the pattern of the tartan?

Thanks!
Cheers;
M.

[Steve Ashton]

If you leave it up to the weaver they will do the best they can.

If you want a particular line or color on the selvedge you must specify it.

The best advice anyone can give about a special weave is to be very specific. Ask for yarn samples and pick the exact colors you want. Specify the Sett size. Get samples of other fabrics this weaver has produced.

If you are going to spend this kind of money you are in charge and should get exactly what you want. But you have to ask for it. Otherwise they don't know and will do the best they can but you may not get what you expected.

[KD Burke]

I'll second the Wizard's advice. From painful personal experience I know that you can never be too specific.

A few years back I wants to recreate a custom weave I ordered some time previously. Although I ordered from the same weaver that did the initial run, and provided them with a sample of the tartan that I wanted to reproduce, the colors in the fabric that I received were not even close to the original.

It seems that the weaver in question had changed yarn suppliers and the colors were the "best match" they could manage to the original using yarn on hand.

Now, if I had been aware of that at the outset, I would gladly have paid extra to have the yarn custom dyed to match the original hues, but as it was, I ended up with several yards of cloth that were unsuitable for the purpose for which I intended them.

[Barb T]

If you order a kilt length custom woven from Dalgliesh, the piece will be woven with a traditional perfect "turned" selvedge, rather than a tuck-in selvedge. That means that you won't run the risk of having a selvedge that doesn't quite match the tartan because of the double-density of warp threads that results from the rapier loom process. So, in terms of attractiveness, it's flawless.

If you want to have a particular stripe in the tartan at the bottom of the kilt (the good edge of the fabric), you would need to work with the Dalgliesh designers to make sure that the good edge of the fabric starts at at particular place in the sett, or they will use the standard that they already have on file. You should also expect to pay a surcharge for this, because they have to redesign the sett that is in the computer and that controls how the warp is wound.

Is the tartan you want to have woven a tartan that is a standard registered tartan (i.e., you can find it in the Dalgliesh search engine https://dcdalgliesh.co.uk/custom), or is it a tartan that you have designed?

[figheadair]

Barb, I woundn't be quite so certain any more as some of Dalgliesh's cloth is now sub-contracted and has a tuck edge and not a selvedge. One needs to be certain to specify what one gets and of course, there is a price difference. If a custom weave then the customer should, if thry now what they are doing, be able to specify the selvedge arrangement.

[Barb T]

Interesting - all of the custom weaves that I have gotten from them, including the most recent one, had a perfect selvedge.