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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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