New tartan

**Starhunter451** · 16th May 13, 10:50 AM

Where is the best place for help designing a new tartan for my blended family?
I am mainly Scottish, Irish and German.
My wife is mainly French, English and Scottish.

Thanks

**Piipriker** · 16th May 13, 03:42 PM

Hej and welcome from Germany,

I like to use the tartan designer from scotweb and used it for my own tartan. You find the link to scotweb in the advertiser section on the top of the page.
You just have to register, the usage is free.

But there are several others to find on the web and you can even get apps for iOS-devices.

hejdå Jörg

**Starhunter451** · 24th May 13, 05:36 PM

Thank you for the link

**MacMillans son** · 24th May 13, 06:46 PM

Matt Newsome, at New House Highland, offers tartan design services for a fee. From what I have seen on here, there are many things to consider when creating a tartan that would be suitable for kilt making, not all of which are about color coordination. It may be worth an email to him to get some more information.

**figheadair** · 24th May 13, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by Piipriker

I like to use the tartan designer from scotweb and used it for my own tartan. You find the link to scotweb in the advertiser section on the top of the page.
You just have to register, the usage is free.

But there are several others to find on the web and you can even get apps for iOS-devices.

You can also use the Scottish Tartan Authority's one for free.

**Starhunter451** · 25th May 13, 04:14 PM

This editor looks to be much easier to use. Thank You and Danke.

**Starhunter451** · 27th May 13, 05:27 PM

Ok. Now I am totally lost. What is the meaning of the number of threads in the tartan? I tried to design one that was a combination of Watson, Whiteman and Hunter, but am scratching my head.

**Downunder Kilt** · 27th May 13, 05:38 PM

The thread count is the number of threads of wool that goes into making each colour in the tartan you are designing. eg the thread count maybe
G40 R5 B40 W5 This would mean the G for green panel would be 40 threads wide, R for red would be 5 threads wide, B for blue 40 threads wide etc.

The is a colour lettercode for a lot of colours. If you go to the STA website, use the tartan ferret to find a tartan it will also show a bar of the tartan and thread count. Having a look at that may be able to help you make sense of what I tried to explain.

Sorry just checked the STA for MacLaren, you get the tartan bar but not the count. You could try Googling tartan thread count to see what comes up

**Downunder Kilt** · 27th May 13, 05:47 PM

Here is a page from Scotweb that has some explanation
http://www.scotweb.co.uk/info/what-i...kes-it-unique/

Also from Nick Fiddes book Kilts and Tartan made easy
A tartan (or plaid) is just a
criss-cross pattern of threads
of different colours. Wallace
tartan for instance has a
‘thread count’ of K2 R16 K16
Y2 K16 R16 (K is black, R is
red, and Y is yellow). This
means it is woven with 2 units
of black thread then 16 of red etc. both horizontally
and vertically (the ‘warp’ and the
‘weft’). Every recorded tartan is uniquely defined
like this, and no two can be the same.