All in the (Robertson) Family (the tartan, not the TV comedy)

[OC Richard]

https://pricklythistle.shop
They describe their operation as "the only weaving mill located on the mainland Highland region of Scotland"

Thanks for that link.

What a strange page.

I had to wade through self-promoting verbiage about politics, causes, and activism to find out about the weaving.

"Climate Stripes" fabric? Oh dear me.

[NHhighlander]

What a strange page.

LOL

I had to wade through self-promoting verbiage about politics, causes, and activism to find out about the weaving.

Yeah. I don't mind causes (I actually do mind people who don't care, but mostly try leave them alone, as experience shows they do get fierce when roused out of their comfort and privilege), but, really... My patience broke and I gave up, mostly because of their "cutesy redacted" four letter word in every page (there must be people that like that. Shudder), as I couldn't figure out what they sell, if anything, for how much. Any website for any business in the planet shows, front and center, product, prices, conditions (sometimes these latter are hidden, a red flag, to start walking away) except this one.

I got there as part of a last ditch effort to get my wife some Scot-ish apparel, as I am following sage and wise advise to drop the arisaid, and these people seemed to know about female tartan stuff that didn't look like an artificial, forced attempt to reinterpret male garb.
They do have a shop in Inverness, I guess we'll drop by, when, and if, we ever get there.

What saddens me most, though, is this thing about being "the only weaving mill located on the mainland Highland region of Scotland." Not at all because what they say or do, or their peculiar way to run a business page, leave and let live I say, but because there are no others. Somewhere in their story they tell on how they got started with some abandoned looms, from a company that went under. I wonder what treasures and resources going to waste are going to the dumpster as Dalgliesh kicked the bucket. Peter MacDonald has stopped taking orders, the last to handweave commercially, if I understood it right.

I don't know much about social/cultural ecosystems, but my experience regarding handmade paper is that once what was a vital, thriving craft is completely taken over by machines or leisure dilettantes or arts degree programs, really weird things start to happen, as we lose the meaning and the human connection between the object, the maker, and the user, the kind of stuff at the very base of humanity, of community, that three-parts exchange. Prickly Thistle seems to get some of this, and in that I say, more power to them!

"Climate Stripes" is but a sign, an indicator, that tartans are in trouble, in ways that might matter, or not. We call ourselves a "community of kilt wearers." Mostly, everything seems and looks normal, we don't need to worry. Yet, for another example, the Tartan Registry fee jumped to 150 pounds from 70 pounds last October, as they crossed their 10,000 count. I feel that the last steps to de-humanize the connection between the object and its makers is winning, turning the whole thing into a game of profit, remove or forget the human except as a client, and even then. Dalgliesh gone. Do you really believe all that tartan cloth at pretty good prices is woven in the UK, when so much profit is available when having lower paid slaves overseas do the work? Who's next to go under?