Hard Tartan

[Woodsheal]

Gerry,
Am very familiar with the Appins: Dan Gilbert, Mara, and the gang! Will see you at Old Bedford on Labor Day weekend....

Does not the modern, tightly machine-woven tartan (as opposed to hand-woven), replicate the "hard" tartan of the 18th C. pretty nearly...?

[M. A. C. Newsome]

If anyone wants to know what old hard tartan looks like, you can come by the Scottish Tartans Museum sometime and see some examples.

As far as I know, no one is producing it anymore. If anyone knows of a source, please let me know! But the closest thing you can come to it would be if you could sweet talk one of the tartan mills to get you a cutting of the cloth "in the grease" as they call it -- right off the loom before anything else is done to it. It's not exactly hard tartan, but you get what you can get.

The problem is, most of the time the mills will be very reluctant to do that. The reason is that today, most people don't *want* a rough feeling tartan. They want it soft. The mills consider tartan "in the grease" to be unfinished and don't really want it out there in the public in that form. That's why sweet talking may be in order. (I haven't actually done this myself, mind you, but others I know have managed to get samples in the grease).

Aye,
Matt

[Woodsheal]

Is it literally "greasy", as in still having a high content of the natural lanolin? Sure would be more weather-resistant that way...!

[M. A. C. Newsome]

No, the sample I felt wasn't. It was just a lot rougher than the tartan we are used to.
M

[awoodfellow]

thanks Matt!

you are literally a profusuon of pleated perception.

are alliterations allowed?

ambrose