Purchasing tartan fabric

[Danwell]

I'm looking at buying some tartan directly from a mill to have a kilt made from in the future. The tartan is woven "double width" - My measurements are 48Wx50Hx26.5L...all in inches.

If I'm looking for an 8yard knife pleat kilt. Does this mean, bearing in mind my measurements above, that I would only need to order four metres of the stuff? Is the tartan cut down the middle and then sewn end to end?

[Paul Henry]

The short answer is yes. Normally an "8 yard " kilt is made from a 4 yard double width piece of tartan, split in half and joined as needed, normally about the centre back , hidden in the pleats,it's almost invisible.

the only proviso is... on kilts with a waist over 46" I would suggest that and 8.5 or 9 yard length would be better and allow a little more fabric.
And I know I used the word "yards" whilst the fabric is sold in metres, for the extra inches I just buy the metres, and enjoy the little bit of extra fabric, or sometimes add an extra hidden pleat.

[Danwell]

So for my measurements, would it be sufficient to buy four metres? Or should I opt for five to be safe?

[Paul Henry]

What is the tartan? if it has a large sett it's best to go a little more, if a small sett then 4 metres is fine, the number of pleats is usually determined by the size of the sett in addition to the length of fabric available.
Are you making it yourself? or if you have a maker in mind , it's worth while talking to them early on as well

[Danwell]

It'll be Isle of Skye. I suppose it is a fairly large set size, so maybe five metres would be the way to go.

Thanks for help on this...

[Riverkilt]

You can have your kiltmaker send you any extra tartan material. Lots of things you can do with it.

Or, you can order extra on purpose and have your kiltmaker make you a matching tartan vest.

Can't have too much material.

[Barb T]

As far as I know, Isle of Skye is woven by only one mill (please correct if I'm wrong - it's a copyrighted tartan, so I'm assuming that's the case). And I also assume that you mean the Isle of Skye District tartan (the one that's purple and brown and green), and not the Isle of Skye Fashion tartan (which is beige and brown and light olive). Anyway, if it's the District tartan, I've made several kilts from the tartan and am actually currently finishing one. The sett size is pretty average in 16 oz (about 7 1/2"). If you're pleating to the stripe, 4.5 meters should be plenty for someone your size. If to the sett, 5 m would be safe, but I don't think you'd really need it.

And if you buy extra and want your kiltmaker to send you what's left over, ask him/her to figure out what the extra will be and cut it off *before* splitting the fabric if you want a wide piece left over. Otherwise, you'll have something that is about 28" wide and the length of the extra.

BTW - I'm curious - why are you ordering the fabric yourself and not having your kiltmaker do it?

[Paul Henry]

there are at least 2 weavers for the Isle of Skye , the links are:

martonmills
lochcarron

[Barb T]

there are at least 2 weavers for the Isle of Skye , the links are:

martonmills
lochcarron

Thanks for the correction!

[Danwell]

As far as I know, Isle of Skye is woven by only one mill (please correct if I'm wrong - it's a copyrighted tartan, so I'm assuming that's the case). And I also assume that you mean the Isle of Skye District tartan (the one that's purple and brown and green), and not the Isle of Skye Fashion tartan (which is beige and brown and light olive). Anyway, if it's the District tartan, I've made several kilts from the tartan and am actually currently finishing one. The sett size is pretty average in 16 oz (about 7 1/2"). If you're pleating to the stripe, 4.5 meters should be plenty for someone your size. If to the sett, 5 m would be safe, but I don't think you'd really need it.

And if you buy extra and want your kiltmaker to send you what's left over, ask him/her to figure out what the extra will be and cut it off *before* splitting the fabric if you want a wide piece left over. Otherwise, you'll have something that is about 28" wide and the length of the extra.

Given the reviews of the Marton Mills cloth and its price compared to Lochcarron, I would be buying from Marton Mills, in the purple/brown/green Isle of Skye.

BTW - I'm curious - why are you ordering the fabric yourself and not having your kiltmaker do it?

I suppose there are a couple of reasons. First, budget. If I buy the fabric now, I can hang on to it until I've saved the funds to have it made into a kilt, and still feel like something's happening. In some cases and with some kilt makers, there seems to be a large price differential between fabric+labour costs separately as opposed to having them do everything. In some cases the price is significantly lower if you source your own tartan.

This kind of leads me to the second reason........there are a number of kilt makers on here (and who are mentioned repeatedly here by their customers) who I would love to have a kilt made from, but there are also kilt makers local to me with very positive reviews. One of these is a quite elderly woman who requests that you source your own tartan for her. If I were to go down the road of having her make my kilt, I would have my tartan on hand to give to her. Another maker has a significant fabric cost but quite reasonable labour costs, so I'd save a signification amount.

I suppose at the moment it's all just conjecture though........I have a kilt on order as we speak and nothing is likely to happen until that comes. I'm just trying to cost things out for a new kilt when this one comes..........the correct number of kilts to have in your wardrobe is n***, where n equals the number of kilts you currently have, right?