The kilt I am wearing in this photo is made from hand woven cloth:


It does fine, but it is a softer hand that the typical tartan. Remember that not all hand woven cloth is made equal (the same is true of machine milled cloth). The weaver who made this tartan for me used yarns from Lochcarron so the cloth was a good quality for kilt making.

Bob Martin used to make a lot of kilts from cloth hand woven by Peter MacDonald in Crieff, who was a full time professional hand weaver of tartan for a while. His cloth made superb kilts. But he knew his stuff and was weaving cloth specifically for this purpose.