Things I do during a really boring Help Hour at work

[Alan H]

I'm making a kilt out of this quite nice lightweight wool, which LOOKS like a tartan to someone not in the know, but really isn't. You see, it's not a twill weave, it's a 1 to 1 weave, and the vertical and horizontal stripes aren't exactly the same. They're very similar, but there are some black threads which are different and one burnt orange little stripe is a different hue going one way from the corresponding stripe going the other way.

Still and all, it's a nice looking plaid and I quite like the kilt. Pictures will come soon. ANY-way so I was sitting at Help Hours yesterday with a friend, name of Todd, and nobody was coming by for Help, and we got to talking about this kilt.

I said that I often got asked "what tartan is that" and so we got going about what kind of story I could tell about this kilt when someone asks... "what tartan is that?"

Well, lass, it's the Kindall of Loch 'n Keynes Estate Plaid.

You see lass.....*make eyes at comely lass, innocently asking the question, here***

My great, great granddad was a Magnetician, and sailed all over the world in the days of magnetic discovery back in the late 1880's, for the Smithsonian Institution. He made quite a little fortune, collecting native artifacts in the Artic and whatnot and selling them in Europe and the States. When he retired in 1894, he bought a little estate along the shores of Loch 'n Keynes in Scotland.

Now, in those days, there was no such thing as all the generally-wearable tartans that we have now, so what he did was design a plaid pattern for his "estate". He had it made up, see, we have his notebook and it's all laid out there....why and just a few years ago, we opened up a trunk that had been in the attic for years and years and there was this swatch of cloth. We think it was probably from a jacket, or a vest.

So I took it to a weaver I know, and she wove a few yards for me and I made a kilt. So I call this the Kindall of Loch 'n Keynes Estate Plaid.

Oh, and here's my phone number....doing anything on Saturday night? I've got tickets to this great bagpipe recital"

My friend thinks it sounds like a great story, it's just almost true-enough sounding to pass even though it's total fantasy, but there isn't a woman in five hundred miles that will fall for it as a pickup line.

[Alan H]

BTW, Kindall is in fact my maternal g-g-grandfathers last name....

....but he's from Sweden.

And the Luminous Joans g-g-g grandfather WAS a magnetic scientist and he DID travel to the Arctic. Er actually have a belaying pin from one of the ships he was on that is made out of a....get this.....walrus tusk.. Think of how many belaying pins there are on a good sized ship of that time.

ouch.

[robbiethepiper]

[i]Well, lass, it's the Kindall of Loch 'n Keynes Estate Plaid.

You see lass.....*make eyes at comely lass, innocently asking the question, here***

My great, great granddad was a Magnetician, and sailed all over the world in the days of magnetic discovery back in the late 1880's, for the Smithsonian Institution. He made quite a little fortune, collecting native artifacts in the Artic and whatnot and selling them in Europe and the States. When he retired in 1894, he bought a little estate along the shores of Loch 'n Keynes in Scotland.

Now, in those days, there was no such thing as all the generally-wearable tartans that we have now, so what he did was design a plaid pattern for his "estate". He had it made up, see, we have his notebook and it's all laid out there....why and just a few years ago, we opened up a trunk that had been in the attic for years and years and there was this swatch of cloth. We think it was probably from a jacket, or a vest.

So I took it to a weaver I know, and she wove a few yards for me and I made a kilt. So I call this the Kindall of Loch 'n Keynes Estate Plaid>>



In Scotland, general usage is that "tartan" is a pattern, "plaid" is a garment. Please feel free to ignore or dispute this information....

[Alan H]

[i]Well, lass, it's the Kindall of Loch 'n Keynes Estate Plaid.

You see lass.....*make eyes at comely lass, innocently asking the question, here***

My great, great granddad was a Magnetician, and sailed all over the world in the days of magnetic discovery back in the late 1880's, for the Smithsonian Institution. He made quite a little fortune, collecting native artifacts in the Artic and whatnot and selling them in Europe and the States. When he retired in 1894, he bought a little estate along the shores of Loch 'n Keynes in Scotland.

Now, in those days, there was no such thing as all the generally-wearable tartans that we have now, so what he did was design a plaid pattern for his "estate". He had it made up, see, we have his notebook and it's all laid out there....why and just a few years ago, we opened up a trunk that had been in the attic for years and years and there was this swatch of cloth. We think it was probably from a jacket, or a vest.

So I took it to a weaver I know, and she wove a few yards for me and I made a kilt. So I call this the Kindall of Loch 'n Keynes Estate Plaid>>



In Scotland, general usage is that "tartan" is a pattern, "plaid" is a garment. Please feel free to ignore or dispute this information....

Oh, I know. This all should be taken very, very very much with ones tongue planted root-deep in ones cheek.

[AFS1970]

BTW, Kindall is in fact my maternal g-g-grandfathers last name....

....but he's from Sweden.

Yes but while walking in the woods outside his childhood home in Sweden, he accidentally strayed across the border into Scotland... and the rest is history!

btw, bonus points for anyone who gets the reference.