Child's question at school talk

[Piglet]

Hi. Its been a while since I've been on here - but when I was doing a talk at a local school about kilt and tartan, and a little P1 girl asked me a question that I couldn't answer, I reckoned that this was the right place to get some help.

Her question was - how many sheep fleeces does it take to make an adult kilt? I have been trying to work out what the weight of material is with a medium weight, 8 yard kilt. As far as I understood it, 13oz meant for a yard of double width material, but that would make a kilt 52oz and when I weigh one, its over 192oz, and I can't imagine that all the canvas/straps/buckles etc would weigh that much, so if anyone can give me a hand with the calculations of weight of tartan, that would be much appreciated, and I can then go back and work out how much wool you get from one fleece.

I will not be defeated by a 5 year old! Thanks.

[Steve Ashton]

It is generally accepted that fabric weight is calculated on the basis of a linear yard at double-width or 60" wide.

A 16oz kilt uses just slightly less than four full, double-width yards and would weight approx. 64oz or 4lbs.

[Piglet]

Hi Steve. Thanks for that - that's how I thought it was worked out, but it was just that based on a 13oz medium weight kilt, that would make the tartan used 52oz, and it just seemed a big jump to go from that to 192 oz for the finished kilt, but then I suppose it has two types of canvas, buckles, straps and linings, so maybe its right.

I will go and work on how many fleeces that would take then. Thanks.

[cck]

192 oz. is 12 lbs. That is a heavy kilt!

[Bruce Scott]

A single merino ram is capable of producing a 12 lb fleece:

"We weaned 185 2009-drop Poll Merino rams on the 9th September, 2009, (3 and a half months old). They averaged 37kg, with the top weight being 48kg. We shore 98 of these rams on the 3rd March, 2010, to record an average fleece weight of 4.8kg with 9 months wool growth. The top fleece weight was 7.3kg."

4.8kg = 10.5lbs, 7.3kg = 16.0lbs

http://www.haddonrig.com.au/About/stud-history

[Tarheel]

I didn't know there was going to be a math quiz. But, on the fly, two of Bruce's rams will make enough wool for one kilt. Check my math please as there should be enough left over for flashes.