2 metres of X-Marks tartan; selvedge damaged

[Alan H]

The two meters that I ordered just arrived. In fact, the selvedge is totally trashed. It's just royally hacked up along the entire length that I got. There's no saving it, but then I was mentally prepared for that. I will lose about two inches of material. I'll serge it very carefully by doing my usual overlapping zig-zags and then trim off the excess. I'll hem the kilt by hand. This will be a 4 yard box pleat kilt, so that's not too bad. I hand-hemmed my first 8 yarder once, so this will be no big deal. The hem will be invisible, and in fact the hem will add just a ti'ch more weight to the 4 yards, and might help with a bit of swing.

I didn't notice any stains, though Moosedog spotted stains in her piece. The material lay reasonably flat on the kitchen table, certainly not a problem. If it gives me any grief, well....that's what the steam setting on the iron is for. At any rate, for the price this is a STEAL. Thanks, Gordon!

This is the next one after Panache's X-Kilt, and I'm looking forward to it. It's fun to work with high quality wool. I am GUESSING that Gordon probably mailed out the better bits and pieces first, and now that we're more than halfway through the damaged bolt, we'll be getting to more and more damaged stuff. But look at it this way.... He's charging $15 Canadian a meter. That, for all intents and purposes right now, is $15 USA per meter. Add $20 shipping and handle to that. It's 60 inches wide. If you have to cut off 4 inches from each edge and turn up/hem an inch to get to good cloth, you STILL have plenty to make a 24 inch long kilt, and you'll have a 4 inch wide strip for the waistband and flashes. It's more work, sure, because you have to hem it. But honestly, if you have made a kilt or two and are thinking about jumping in and making another one from wool, it's going to be hard to beat this deal. If you're worried about the stains, buy another half-yard and cut out the stained sections and piece it together. Yeah, it's a bit tricky, but not THAT tricky.