X Marks Tartan order update

[Mike n NC]

Done deal.

Mike

[The Wizard of BC]

I thought I should update everyone on the progress of our order.

I put a check to Gordon Kirkgright into the mailbox on Fri. hoping it would make it out that day. But alas it has been sitting in the box all weekend.
(note-there is no mail service on Sat. in Canada)
This weekend it was a holiday here in British Columbia, so nothing happened on Mon.

I watched the mailperson empty the box this morning and our check is on it's way.

I spoke to Gordon last week and they are still on their vacation schedule. But he assured me that as soon as everyone gets back to work that we will be put on the production schedule.

With the addition of a 4 meter order from Dr. Barb, and an additional meter for Riverkilt Ron's vest, our order is now up to 28 meters.

I would like to thank you all for your prompt payments. I'm sorry some of you had such a hassle with PayPal. I'm also sorry some of you were charge an extra fee by the PayPal system. All I can say is I'm sorry.

PayPal also charged me a hefty chunk for their service. I was hoping to have enough money to compensate for my time of handling, cutting, and packaging the fabric when it arrives but now it seems I'm doing this for free.

The shipping charge on the fabric from the mill to my shop will be out of my pocket. I didn't expect these extra charges and now I'll just have to eat them.

This better be one beautiful kilt.

Gordon has promised to give me an expected ship date as soon as he knows it so I can keep everyone notified. Until the mill starts up again all he can give me is an estimated ship time of 6 to 8 weeks.

Stay tuned for further updates.

[Alan H]

You won't be eating anything on my account, that's for sure. You'll have mail, shortly...

[Kiltman]

Send me a bill for your services. I'm delighted that you have made the effort. I'll send you my share for your services at once.
Kiltman

[The Wizard of BC]

AN UPDATE!!!!!!!

I spoke with Gordon Kirbright this morning. He brought up two points.

1st) The colors as displayed on the computer print-out did not fully explain what we were looking for. I had included some threads in the colors I thought would help him and some explanation of what we were trying to do.
Gordon is sending me samples of yarns so I can touchy/feely and get back to him.

2nd) The Merino wool F & K uses is much finer than the wool most of us are used to dealing with and that makes to sett less than 4 inches. I have talked this over with Gordon and he suggested we increase the thread count by 50%.
That means that the sett will now be in the range of 6-6 1/2". This without changing the overall pattern.
I will check with MAC Newsome and get his permission to alter his design.


I tried to get to meet with Gordon on last Fri. when I went to the mainland for the "Kilted Gathering" but schedules did not mesh and we missed each other.

We confirmed that the weaving has been fully payed for. The only hold up is waiting for his workers to return from holidays.

I'll let everyone know what MAC Newsome's response is.

Keep an eye out for further updates.

[Barb T]

Brilliant! A sett less than 4" wouldn't make a very good kilt. 6-6.5 is great.

And I'm also going to send along a check for shipping - you shouldn't be out any $$ for having done all this!

Cheers,

Barb

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I already sent Steve my reply about the thread count. Basically, this is no problem. The thread count is really just a basic ration, not a prescribed number by any means. You can double or triple the count if you need to in order to get the size sett you are shooting for. The key is just to make sure that you increase all counts by the same ratio. This will preserve the pattern, which is the important thing.

Weavers have to deal with this all the time. You want a larger sett for kilt making, for example, than for making a scarf or a neck tie. So long as Gordon knows this cloth is destined for kilts, he'll make sure it has a good sized sett.

As to the colors, they should not be a problem. I didn't select any fancy variations. Just a standard white, yellow and gray. The two blues are azure (light blue) and navy (dark blue). He shouldn't have any problem with that.

Aye,
Matt

[Alan H]

Everyone should note that the new sett size changes your options. I'd guess, in fact I'm pretty sure that with a sett of six inches or so instead of nine, it would be possible to make a four-yard, knife pleated kilt for someone with a 40-inch waist. By my calculations, with the larger, previous sett, even with a 1.5 inch revealed pleat area, you needed 7 yards of material.

So our options just expanded. Check with your kiltmaker to be sure.

[The Wizard of BC]

A clarification Alan.

The large sett of 9 inches was a rough estimate of the #3 Tartan done way back when we were still in the planning and voting stage.

I don't think we ever calculated for the sett of the #1 or #2 tartans.

The differance here is not due to design, but due to yarn thickness. The Merino wool that Fraser & Kirkbright uses is a much finer wool than say Locharran.

This resulted in a significantly smaller sett than is usual for Kilts. (under 4")

This adjustment of thread count needed to be done to bring the sett back up to a usable size of 6-6 1/2".

[Alan H]

Hmmmm. you might be right. I was using the 9-inch figure all along as a guide for planning my own kilt, but that might not have been accurate. Whatever the case a 6 inch sett is just fine with me, in fact I like it better than the larger sett size, though I know that some kilts are made with setts that big.

I totted up the numbers once, for making a knife pleated kilt, pleated to sett, with either a 1 inch or a 1.5 inch reveal of the pleat using material that had a 9 inch sett,and the minimum yardage that I figured I needed to pull it off was about 7 yards. That's because the size of the sett required really deep pleats and those swallow up material, fast!

With a six inch sett, each pleat is significantly smaller (though still pretty deep) and the amount of material needed is less.

Here's my thinking.....

I have a 40 inch waist and 44 inch hips. To go 'round me butt, I would then need half of that 44 inches in pleats, right? The other half is the over, and under-apron. OK, so I need 22 inches worth of pleats.

Let's say that I have the kilt built so that there'sa one-inch reveal per pleat. That's a reasonable reveal for a traditional-looking knife-pleated kilt. That means there will be 22 pleats to go 'round my backside. Each of those pleats will be roughly the depth of the sett, minus one inch to account for the revealed part. (I think that's right). OK, so if the sett is nine inches, that means each pleat is eight inches.

OK, so let's figure out how many yards of material we need for each sett size.

22 pleats x 8 inches/pleat = 176 inches. That's almost 5 yards of material, right there. 4.9 yards in leats for the material with the nine-inch sett..

OK, now for the six inch sett...

22 pleats x 5 inches/pleat = 110 inches. That's three yards of material.

If the "kick" pleat and reverse pleat are the same size in both kilts, and the over and under-aprons are built the same way, they'll take the same amount of material. So there's a two-yard difference in these kilts for no reason other than the sett size is different. Of course, you can always pleat in extra deep pleats if you want a heavier kilt, but I personally wouldn't do that.

That's what I'm getting at. The smaller sett size may allow folks some options in terms of what they want to have built that we didn't have when we (maybe it was just me!) were assuming that the material would have a 9-inch sett.

Believe me, I have NO problem with the smaller sett size or any changes in thread count (which I never thought of before, anyway)!!!