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Introduction
There are many excellent sites
on the internet that give the history, description and details of tartans.
It is not our intention to explore this further other than in relation to
the production of true tartan hose.
Strictly speaking no highland
outfit is complete if matching hose are not included, but due to the cost
and difficulty of getting these made, it has now become normal practice to
wear plain white hose with kilts in evening wear and for some bands. Only
in Highland Dancing Competitions is the strict code still applied and
points are lost if “not properly dressed”.
The purpose of this section is
to give you some idea of the work involved in producing a pair of
“highland dancing hose”
Structure
of Tartans Cloth
1. The first requirement of a
tartan cloth is that it should be a twill woven fabric.
2. The second requirement is
that the warp (the lengthwise threads) have a
strictly defined number and sequence of colored
threads, known as the “Sett”. In most tartans
(about 98% of them) there is a centerline to this
sett and the number and sequence of each color is symmetrical about this centerline.
3. The third requirement is
that the weft (the crosswise threads) of the weave
follow the exact same “sett” sequence as
the warp.
The main wide blocks of color are known as the “undercheck”,
and each block normally has a thin line of lighter colored
thread known as the “overcheck”. The three
requirements above give the cloth its characteristic checked appearance,
with solid colored squares of the undercheck and overcheck
repeated along a diagonal, and in between there is a mixture (or marl) of
the colors.
Structure
of Knitted Hose
The tartan check is the result
of the interaction of the multiple warp and weft threads in the weaving
process. In knitting however only one thread is used in a plain fabric, or
one thread in each colored area in an intarsia
(see terminology) fabric. It is therefore
impossible to copy the checked structure of the cloth in a knitted fabric.
The nearest approximation is to replace the undercheck
with diamonds of solid colour and marls.
In knitted hose the main colors of the undercheck are
represented by solid diamonds along the front and back of the leg, and the
marls are the diamonds on the sides of the leg. The diamonds also have overchecks to match the tartan.
If the tartan has more than two
colors in the undercheck,
it may be necessary to have “split diamonds” in order to
incorporate all the solid colors. Similarly if
there are multiple colors in the overcheck, it may be necessary to make a two color check. Both these operations involve significant
extra work and therefore cost more.
Matching
Colors
With thousands of tartans
already registered (for official registry refer to
http://www.tartans.scotland.net), and new ones being registered every day,
it is impossible to exactly match the colors in
all the tartans produced in different mills and slightly different color specifications. The Company tackles this problem
by having its own yarn spun to 1/40nm. It is then dyed to the most
commonly used tartan shades, but even this means that we hold about 30
shades of “green” and similar number shades of “blue”. The photograph shows
a small selection of our dyed colors.
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