Recreating a tartan fabric?

[RockyR]

You, obviously, have me at a disadvantage Rocky and although not wanting to doubt your word, I find it almost impossible to believe. Are you seriously telling me that there are no mills weaving tartan in the whole of the United States. How did the US get itself in to such a position? Are all the twills imported, or is there no market to make it viable?

I had assumed (obviously incorrectly) that with a population of 300 million, that there would be a thriving weaving industry. Where does it all come from - China?

In bewilderment, Regards

Chas

I'll echo Artificer's comments:

The US USED to have a lot of mills, most jobs were shipped overseas in the mid 90's when cheap labor really 'came online'. North Carolina was especially hard hit.

the majority of the material here is imported from China and the like. I've been to "fabric Row" in Philadelphia and NUMEROUS fabric stores here in PA, NY, NJ and VA (different states) and always come across VERY poor quality fabric in tartan... NEVER quality tartan fabric (on par with UK woven stuff). I have seen high quality FABRIC, but never in tartan.

There are a number of mills who shut down due to globalization and cheap labor coming out of the far east. I'm not saying all the US Mills are gone, but I don't know of any that weave tartan suitable for kiltmaking. The closest we have is Frasier and Kirkbright in Canada, though I prefer UK cloth to theirs.

Also, please note my comments in my initial post were sort of 'tongue in cheek' and no malice was intended, Chas. It's sometimes hard to convey subtleties of the spoken word into read-able text.