Thread counts for a tartan

[Barb T]

Describing a sett in terms of blocks lead to all sorts of errors in the past and it is really far easier to use the threadcount which is how weavers have recorded setts through the generations. In his seminal work The Setts of the Scottish Tartans D. C. Stewart refined that method by starting with the colour/shade at the lower end of the alphabet, a process which if followed allows for uniformity of recording. The caveat to this method is that colours sometimes have to be prefixed by Light, Dark and Mid where more than one shade is included in a sett. The only exception Stewart included was Azure because it frequently appeared in old setts as a highlight colour. Personally I prefer Wilsons' term Light Blue (LB).

Although this is true, people who don't weave have a hard time visualizing what a thread counts mean in terms of tartan symmetry and how a tartan looks. While the ABAC "block" system can lead to weaving errors, it is actually a pretty good general strategy for helping people to visualize how a tartan is structured, where the pivots are, and what the symmetry is.