This is the first time I'm posting anything on this forum about this, but I felt the need to clarify a few points. I first learned of this issue when I got a phone call from Barb about it. She noticed a problem with the selvedge in the cloth she had and was wondering if I had the same problem. I checked the cloth I had recieved from those X Marks members I am making kilts for, and I saw just what she was talking about.

Here is the issue: F&K use a turn-under method in their selvedge, which a lot of mills use, including most major Scottish tartan mills. No problem with that. But in this particular instance, the broad white stripe of the tartan is close enough to the selvedge that the dark blue threads from the turn-under "bleed through" about half the width of the white stripe.

Neither Barb nor I made kilts from the first run of cloth, so we didn't notice it before. We were curious as to whether the first run looked the same, and we thought to look through Hamish's photo album, as he had a kilt made from the first run:
http://www.imff.net/php/useralbums/h...tHCUp_06_01_11

You can see from the bottom of his kilt that the first run also had this problem. The problem is not with the weave, but with the layout of the tartan. If the white stripe had not been located quite so near to the selvedge edge, this would not have been a problem.

Barb took an up-close photo of the selvedge that shows exactly what I'm talking about. She can post it here if she chooses.

All I did was to contact the three clients I'm making kilts for, explain the issue with the selvedge, and give them two options:
1) Leave it as it is and not worry about it.
2) Have me put a hem in the cloth to hide the selvedge.

I had people choose both options, and I'm happy to comply with their wishes.

For the record, I'm not "married" to any Scottish mill -- in fact, our museum gift shop orders quite a bit of product from Great Scot International, the US distributors for F&K. I can't speak for Barb, but I sincerely doubt she has any ties, formal or informal, to a particular mill. She's an individual kiltmaker and I know sources cloth from a variety of mills. Like myself, she just wants to make her clients aware of any problems *before* we start to cut & sew, rather than have them find out after the fact!

My only advice would be, in future runs of this tartan, to adjust the layout so that the white line doesn't fall so near the selvedge.