Outlander Tartans soon to be available through The Celtic Croft

[KiltedKnome]

This was announced on Diana Gabaldon's facebook page.

http://www.kilts-n-stuff.com/outland...ander-tartans/

The five tartans woven for the Outlander series will be available in 100% wool and apparently also in poly-viscose and poly-wool.

[Elizabeth]

http://www.kilts-n-stuff.com/outlander-products/

The link to the products page.

Edited to add that there were prices a few days ago but now they are gone. When they reappear I hope they are more reasonable!

[mookien]

I like the look of a couple of the tartans. Does anyone know the weight of the wool? How 'bout the weaver? Thanks.

[davidlpope]

I thought the tartan used in this show was simply Mackay in the weathered/reproduction color scheme...

[The Celtic Croft]

The Outlander tartans are woven as a hopsack with a wash only to give it that natural look. The weight of the wool is 12oz and it is 60" wide with a kilting selvedge. We will also be adding more budget friendly poly/viscose and poly/wool options once the authentic wool products are launched. The webpages and products have been sent to Sony Pictures for final approval. We should have this sorted out by next week.

[Terry1948]

The Outlander tartans are woven as a hopsack with a wash only to give it that natural look. The weight of the wool is 12oz and it is 60" wide with a kilting selvedge. We will also be adding more budget friendly poly/viscose and poly/wool options once the authentic wool products are launched. The webpages and products have been sent to Sony Pictures for final approval. We should have this sorted out by next week.

Thank you, Joseph, for this information.

Now, to the kiltmakers out there, what would be the difference in making a kilt using hopsacking, which is a variation of plain weave, versus the twill of current fabrics? My wife is quite a fan of the books and the series and has expressed an interest in the fabric when it is available.

[The Celtic Croft]

The Outlander fabric should be excellent for kiltmaking. It's a good weight for a kilt, and the differences between the hopsack and a twill weave are primarily in appearance. The hopsack is a plain weave, so you won't have the diagonal thread pattern of the twill.

If you've seen our Braveheart or Rob Roy tartans, those are both plain-weave hopsacks, but they are both a bit heavier, and a bit "rougher" than the Outlander tartans. Also spring-weight tartans are pretty-much always plain-weave, so if you have a spring weight tie, scarf, sash or something lying around, you can see the difference in appearance between plain-weave and twill.

Hopsacks in general, and the Outlander tartans specifically, are woven a little bit looser. And because of the simple finishing process, the tartans are softer and fuzzier — not smooth and "pressed" like the treatment of a modern twill.

[The Celtic Croft]

NOTE — The link at the head of this post is going to to be dead for a few days. We had our Outlander pages hidden while we were working on them for approval. I did not know that Google could index a hidden page, but apparently The Great Google is all powerful. When the licensing people brought it to our attention that we had live links showing up in Google searches, we had to disable the pages rather than just hide them.

[The Celtic Croft]

Even more information about hopsack vs. plain weave vs. twill weave:
Plain weave is a 1-1 weave — both the warp and the weft are woven over-one-thread, under-one-thread, etc.
Hopsack is a 2-2 weave — both the warp and the weft are woven over-two-threads, under-two-thread, etc.
Twill tartan is also a 2-2 (more commonly written 2/2), but each thread is offset by 1 from the next to create the diagonal pattern.
Also interesting, for a given gauge of yarn, a 2-2 (2/2) weave generally yields a cloth 50% heavier than a simple 1-1 weave because the threads have less space between them.

Plain Weave

Hopsack Weave

Twill Weave