Hard to find Tartans

**Jeremiah** · 9th February 07, 03:34 AM

At this point in life (21 year old college student) I do not think I will be buying any tanks unless I have some super formal event and my family decides to buy one for me. Nevertheless, it would be nice to have something in my clan tartan. The rub is that the material in wool (which is the only thing I can find Baillie tartan in) is around $80 per yard. Does anyone know of a company that does the poly materials like USA Kilts uses in harder to find tartans?

Baillie Tartan

**RockyR** · 9th February 07, 07:21 AM

Hey Jerimiah

Unfortunately, PV is only available in about 75 or 80 tartans and Baillie isn't one. Keep in mind that there are literally THOUSANDS of different tartans designed, so making all of them in PV wouldn't be very financially feasable.

To have something special woven in PV takes a minimum order of 130 M and isn't cheap (actually costs 1/3 more than buying "stock tartans"), so that's not often done either.

As Riverkilt (Ron MacDonald) says:

Of Speed, Quality and Price, you can have 2.

Well... it sort of fits here. Just change the speed and quality parts to "baillie tartan" and the price stays... and make it 1 of the 2 you can choose... so you can either pick baillie expensive or another one cheap. OK... maybe Ron's quote DOESN'T work so well here. I'll shut up now.

**arrogcow** · 9th February 07, 08:07 AM

The other option is to put some effort in and see what you can do. Here is info for the Baillie Clan society in the US, http://www.tartans.scotland.net/asso...l.cfm?id=27178
It is possible that you can find enough people interested in a cheaper (PV) tartan kilt that you could get enough orders to make the 130 meter run worth it. I don't know the cost, but for the Army tartan, Rocky said he needed 15 orders to pay for the tartan. It's quite possible that you could get 20-30 people interested in PV espicially since this is a tartan not readily avalible in wool either (meaning a very expensive traditional kilt).

Or go for wool. The X-marks tartan only needed 50M to make it $44 per M (US) and you only need 15 -20 to make that a good deal to people who expected to pay $80+ for tartan wool.

Just a thought.

Adam

**Warhoover** · 9th February 07, 08:13 AM

Jerimiah, I understand your frustrations. I have to deal with the same situation with some of my family's tartans. Some tartans are obscure or there is not alot of interest in them and it isn't in the interest of the weaver's bottom line to have bolts and bolts of a tartan that doesn't sell at the volume of others. Unfortunately for me I also have interest in some of the lesser known tartans out there and when I see the cost of having a tartan done as special weave I am also intimidated.

Luckily I squirrel away my pocket change and the odd loose bill in my pockets and its amazing how fast that adds up. Being 21 I am sure your getting close to graduation. Remember, some of your family will undoubtedly include monitary gifts that you can set aside a portion of. It is tough sometimes to think long term but believe me it works!

**Tattoo Bradley** · 9th February 07, 08:43 AM

DC Daglish has been brought up few times. Barb mentioned to me that you can get a single kilt length (16 oz. custom weave) at a pretty decent price. That's a thought too...

**macwilkin** · 9th February 07, 08:45 AM

Originally Posted by Tattoobradley

DC Daglish has been brought up few times. Barb mentioned to me that you can get a single kilt length (16 oz. custom weave) at a pretty decent price. That's a thought too...

And don't forget:

http://kilts.albanach.org

Our own Matt Newsome!

Cheers,

Todd

**arrogcow** · 9th February 07, 08:52 AM

Originally Posted by Tattoobradley

DC Daglish has been brought up few times. Barb mentioned to me that you can get a single kilt length (16 oz. custom weave) at a pretty decent price. That's a thought too...

That's $65/yard and only single width.

Getting a group (like x-marks) makes it effectively $22/yard for single width.

Adam

**Jeremiah** · 9th February 07, 11:00 AM

So, unless I find a big group of people, I am essentially without options.Oh well, one day I will have some money saved up and I'll just go wild and order a bunch of this tartan. I guess until then I'll just have to wear what is available. I would try to see if the Clan Baillie society could help, but my family uses the spelling Bailey and the Clan Baillie considers Baillie the only correct spelling and only admits members who use that spelling. Kind of ridiculous...Oh well.

**arrogcow** · 9th February 07, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by Jeremiah

So, unless I find a big group of people, I am essentially without options.Oh well, one day I will have some money saved up and I'll just go wild and order a bunch of this tartan. I guess until then I'll just have to wear what is available. I would try to see if the Clan Baillie society could help, but my family uses the spelling Bailey and the Clan Baillie considers Baillie the only correct spelling and only admits members who use that spelling. Kind of ridiculous...Oh well.

Then someone should tell the current clan head since he spells his name with only 1 L. On the other hand here is a link to your tartan available for $77 in a double width http://houseoftartan.co.uk/scottish/...278&catid=2117

So you could get one of Matt's 4 yard box pleat kilts for $297 ($50 cheaper than you could get it buying direct from him.

It is 11oz fabric, but then so is PV.

Adam

**Barb T** · 9th February 07, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by arrogcow

That's $65/yard and only single width.

Getting a group (like x-marks) makes it effectively $22/yard for single width.

Adam

I'm not sure where you're getting the $65/yard from. I've ordered custom weaves from them, and it's not that much. I'm not sure of their current prices, but I paid less than 20 pounds sterling a yard when I had a custom weave done a couple of years ago. But, yes, it is single width.

Barb