disappoinment with Cthulu tartan

[Paul Henry]

To be honest I'm not too bothered about the knots, although I expect a few , to be confronted with perhaps 8 on a piece of 4 yard double width was more that I considered reasonable, but I've worked with them on other cloth, so that's part of traditional woven tartan, so I didn't loose any sleep over that, and the thick line does go across most of the double width, but it's hidden, so again, I treat it a part of a woven fabric from a craft weaver.
The selvedge does seem uneven on both edges and is worse than the usual from Dalgleish. I'm not expecting perfection ,in a real way the variations in a weave prove that it has been produced by hand which is a good thing , but this example is particuarly bad, when I have been weaving in the past I would have been very concerned and would have done something to correct it. It seems that the variation in the edge is caused by the difference in colour band, so either the dyed threads were thicker or thinner , or in the finishing process some shrinkage occured .
Bottom line is that the kilt from this cloth will be fine, it's just a shame that these faults will cause the kiltmaker a bit of extra work,and also cause a degree of hesitation on ordering other special runs, but having said that my own tartan from them which arrived at almost the same time, was very acceptable, so perhaps producing the larger run of Cthulu stretched them a little further than they were comfortable with, I hope the answer is that simple.

[artificer]

....
Bottom line is that the kilt from this cloth will be fine, it's just a shame that these faults will cause the kiltmaker a bit of extra work,and also cause a degree of hesitation on ordering other special runs, but having said that my own tartan from them which arrived at almost the same time, was very acceptable, so perhaps producing the larger run of Cthulu stretched them a little further than they were comfortable with, I hope the answer is that simple.

Bolding mine-

Or perhaps the unspeakable horrors hinted at in the thread count of the sett drove their weavers slightly mad :cthulhusmiley: Mwahahahahahahahahah!

That is all.

ith:

[madmacs]

Bolding mine-

Or perhaps the unspeakable horrors hinted at in the thread count of the sett drove their weavers slightly mad :cthulhusmiley: Mwahahahahahahahahah!

That is all.

ith:

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Paul, it had crossed my mind that the selvage issue may have been something that occurred at the finishers, as well.

[longhuntr74]

Here's three pictures of the selvedge on my US Army Tartan kilt...also woven by Dalgleish. I'd say it's the opposite end of the spectrum in perfection. Let's hope the experiences with the C'thulu are not representative of a decline in quality.

[Calico]

Oops, reread more closely - all I have to say paulhenry already said in post #11.


Looks like dyeing threads different colors affects their performance. Matt has a thread going now (here in The Tartan Place) showing selvedges he has worked with.

His HOE Heavy Weight example has this wavy selvedge and to me it looks like the red threads pulled more tightly, perhaps due to how they were finished during/after dyeing.

In the first example in this thread it looks very much like one color band is causing most of the unevenness. I wouldn't fault the weaving until we can be certain. It looks like yarn difference to me.

It could be because we requested special dyeing of unforgivable colors!

[Orvis]

The little "picks" on the selvedge edge were likely left there when the thrums (the fringe of warp threads left the loom when the cloth is cut off) were cut off. Another possibility is that the weaver left the thrums along the selvedge edges in a pattern that looks like a chain of drooping threads. I once purchased eight yards of replica military tartan (to be used in reenacting) from a Pennsylvania weaving house (Family Heirloom Weavers), and it had this chain of yarn along the selvedge edges, with the threads connected to the selvedge every inch or so. When I carefully removed them, little "picks" remained that very much resembled those on your tartan's selvedge. So perhaps your Dalgleish tartan was hand-cut from the loom, which left these little irregularities.

[Paul Henry]

The little "picks" on the selvedge edge were likely left there when the thrums (the fringe of warp threads left the loom when the cloth is cut off) were cut off. Another possibility is that the weaver left the thrums along the selvedge edges in a pattern that looks like a chain of drooping threads. I once purchased eight yards of replica military tartan (to be used in reenacting) from a Pennsylvania weaving house (Family Heirloom Weavers), and it had this chain of yarn along the selvedge edges, with the threads connected to the selvedge every inch or so. When I carefully removed them, little "picks" remained that very much resembled those on your tartan's selvedge. So perhaps your Dalgleish tartan was hand-cut from the loom, which left these little irregularities.

NO, it's not that, you are descriibing something entirely different.
Thrums are the scraps of warp threads left on the loom after the handwoven cloth has been cut off. there are no thrums on the selvedge edge. It's most likely the cloth was hand cut from the loom. that would be the most usual way of releasing the cloth, and it's the way that I'm sure that all of their cloth is produced.

But I've now completed all the sewing on the kilt and pressed and pulled and steamed and the edge is more than bearable again, so it's not a problem now. It's a shame that the problems were not spotted at the Mill, and either rectified by them or the finishers.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

I've hestitated before posting this , but I felt as information to others it was important

I got a length of tartan before Christmas after rather drawn out telephone conversations chasing delivery times from Dalgleish, but I was very happy to finally get it!

Now that I've started to make the kilt I find some flaws which make me question the quality control.
This looks like a repaired broken thread, but it is fairly heavy and clumsy , it's not the end of the world as it will be in the fold of a pleat, so bearable

I've since learned that these thick threads seen in this photo are called "slubs." (A section of yarn that is fuller than it was intended to be).

I would assume, perhaps, that the reason you see more of them in this case might be due to the fact that this cloth was woven with custom dyed yarns, so the mill did not have excess yarns available to them to make up for any slubs present in the yarn stock.

But I bring it up again because I just began on a kilt made from Lochcarron's Strome range. It's a 4 yard kilt, and in this 2 yard (double width) length of tartan, I have so far found about three slubs like this, which is highly unusual for Lochcarron.

I don't typically see slubs like this in any cloth I get, from Dalgliesh, Lochcarron, or anywhere else. Though now that I think back, I do recall once or twice over the years when I have received cloth from Dalgliesh with a note indicating there were some flaws in the fabric and so they wove an extra 1/2 yard (or whatever was appropriate) to account for it. Generally this meant that there was a slub or two at one end of the weave, but given the extra fabric allowance I was always able to work around the flaws, so no harm done.

So in my experience it is rare to receive cloth with slubs like this. I do think it's rather odd that you have this problem with Dalgliesh cloth and I have the same problem with Lochcarron cloth at the same time.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Well, I started another kilt in this tartan yesterday. This will be the third kilt I have made in this tartan. Before I started I made a special point to check out the selvage after reading this thread. I didn't notice anything wrong with the other two lengths I had worked with.

This is what the selvage of this length looks like.


That's right. About as straight as they come. Here's a close-up.



I have not noticed any other flaws in the fabric, either.

Thankfully, it would seem that the length that Paul received was rather an anomaly from this run.