Nearly 2 years in the making: custom project is done!

[Tobus]

Some of you may recall that about two years ago I was gearing up to start a custom tartan and kilt project. I wanted a military box-pleated kilt, built in a similar fashion to a standard military kilt (rolled pleats, pleated to stripe, double-prong buckles, no fringe, high-rise, woollen tape top band, etc.). But I wanted it done in my clan tartan of Colquhoun in a sett size and colour scheme that was more appropriate than what the mills offer in their standard cloth. I really wanted heavy 18oz "hard tartan", but that just isn't an option these days.

So, long story short, it meant doing a custom tartan weave. I ended up using Andrew Elliot Ltd. to do the weaving. It was to be a large-sett (302 threads/ends per sett for a 7.5" finished sett size) in Wilson's colours, 16oz double-width cloth and a double herringbone selvedge. I wanted minimal finishing on the cloth to keep it coarse and minimise shrinkage. Basically, just scoured to remove oils but no pressing or other finishing treatments. It was a 9-month process of figuring out the thread count to scale up the Colquhoun tartan and adjust it to my liking (such as a slightly wider red stripe to enhance pleating aesthetics), figure out thread colour options, get the project into their queue, have threads custom dyed, and get the tartan woven. I ended up with 10.6 metres of tartan, or 11.6 yards, almost 35 feet.

Then the material was sent off to Paul Henry kiltmaker, where we went through design options for the kilt. The pandemic caused some delays and such, but we finally managed to get the kilt done and shipped to me. I received it last week, and it is gorgeous!

The Wilson's colour scheme is visually about halfway between dark "modern" colours and "ancient" colours. The blue is deeper and the green is more olive. In my opinion, this colour scheme really makes the tartan colours more vivid without being overly dark like modern colours tend to be. The widening of the red stripe in the custom weave really helped it stand out more than it does in the standard Colquhoun sett. And by pleating to the red stripe, it gave it more of a military kilt look.

These are photos of the kilt the day I received it, before even removing the basting stitches. At some point I'll get some photos of me wearing it, but I'm going to need to shed a few pandemic lockdown pounds for that, LOL. I also need to cut and fringe a day plaid; I'll go with plaited fringe on that one. And I need to send off some tartan for a custom waistcoat too.



That selvedge!



As for sett size, here it is (shown at left) next to my other Colquhoun kilts. I love the variety here, with sett size going from large to medium to small, and colours ranging from darker/Wilson's to reproduction to ancient. See how much better that red stripe stands out?



It's still not quite as large a sett as has been worn by Colquhoun clan chiefs over the years, but I think it will suit me. Sir Iain Colquhoun and Sir Malcolm Colquhoun in their kilts are below for reference (these appear to be in the darker modern colours).