Information for tartan buyers

[Alan H]

Our experience with designing and having the Wildcat Tartan woven is pretty well documented on XMTS. However, here's a breakdown...

Tartan Design

This period of time is variable, of course. You can do to one of the online tartan design applications and knock out something in an hour and go with it. If you have a committee of people putting together a tartan design, it can take quite a few weeks or months. Be aware that what you see on the computer screen is not necessarily what will be available from the mill, in stock colors.

Communication

Here on XMTS we get used to practically instantaneous communication. I know myself that I get antsy if I send an e-mail and I haven't heard back from someone in 48 hours. Well, forget that. Some mills, mostly the big ones, have marketing people who are devoted to communications with customers. Even then, the Locharron guy I was dealing with just STOPPED answering e-mail after 2-3 exchanges and I had to go to his boss to get him to return inquiries. At the smaller mills, the guy in charge may be on holiday for a few days, or off in London at a trade show, or who knows what. Just chill out. It's going to be slower than you think. Give everybody 4-5 days to respond to e-mail before asking them a second time.

Picking thread colors:

As McMurdo and I and Barb discovered (she probably knew this already) just because you use something called "Weavers Colors" on the usual website design tool does NOT mean that any given mill will have that exact color in stock. Most big mills can supply more-or-less any color but there may very well be surcharges for custom dyes. Please read Barbs post, above this one. Odds are strong that you will wind up picking a compromise between color and price.

The best way to go about it is to request thread samples from the mill. They'll be sent to you, but if you're in North America it may take a week or two to get them to your doorstep. It's likely that even with thread samples in hand, it will be difficult to judge the exact color. When you get close, you can request a graphic rendering from the mill. This is a computer-generated image of your tartan rendered in their thread colors...or the best approximation of those colors by the ink/web palette that they have. If you are really, really particular about the exact color, then be prepared to pay for custom dyes. If you are "auditioning" several mills, then consider that you may be requesting thread samples from more than one place and you may go back to the mill and request a different set of threads. They will look at the graphic image that you send then and pass along whatever colors seem to be the closest that they have in stock. If you want to look at more options, you might be waiting for several mills, and several trans-Atlantic thread sample mailings.

Yardage

Depending on the mill, there are minimum amounts. DC Dalgliesh I believe has an 8-10 yard minimum in single width. Marton Mills has something like an 11 yard minimum for double-width. Don't take my word for it, ASK THEM. However, the mills give price breaks at various lengths. For example, you'll find a price break / yard at around 35 yards, and another one at about 70 yards. The first run of the Scottish Wildcat Tartan was 92 yards.

It is VERY IMPORTANT when ordering larger amounts that you specify that you need at least a minimum of X number of yards. Some mills (one on the Isle of Bute) specialize in fabric for "furnishings"...meaning upholstery and so on. It appears that in that industry, when someone orders 200 yards, that's +/- as much as 5%. If you have an exact amount that you **MUST** have, then you absolutely need to tell the mill about that before ordering.

Delivery

It's going to take a couple of months for the tartan to arrive at your doorstep. The Scottish Wildcat Tartan was quoted to us at eight to ten weeks. They actually got it to us a week or two early, which was nice. Also, be aware of US Customs. The Import Tarriff for "cloth made from fine animal hair" for clothing is 24%. You'd better be ready to pay that. If you are totting up costs for a large run to be sent to a bunch of clan members, for example, you'd better include that 24%, or you run the very significant risk of getting stuck with a very large bill. The stinker is that you don't know for sure whether Customs will levy the charge, or not. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Total Time

For the Scottish Wildcat Tartan, the total time from a gleam in my eye to the day that the tartan arrived in bolts at my doorstep, ready to be cut was about 6 months. That's extremely fast. Part of why it was so fast was that I pestered my "committee"... McMurdo and Barb, mercilessly for months to move things along. This was to the point of being rather obnoxious!! I practically drove them nuts! Anyway, ranking where the time went, looks like this:

deciding on a design...voting, re-thinking designs and so on. -- Two months
color decisions...thread colors, threads being sent back and forth from three mills, etc. -- six weeks.
back-and forth with the mills over price...happened about the same time as the thread exchange --three-four weeks
wait time, once the order was sent --- two months