Tartans: Soft and Hard
Visitors to my web site may have noted that I now offer a variety of finishing options on the cloth woven for my Heirloom Kilts. http://newhousehighland.com/heirloom_about.html I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain a bit more about this option. First, what do I mean by "finish?" After the cloth is woven by the mill, but before it is shipped to the customer, it is sent off to the finishers. This is an off-site facility (only one woolen mill I know of in Scotland does their own finishing on-site) where the woven cloth is run through a process that essentially cleans and softens it. Different finishing techniques can be applied to different types of cloth, to achieve different desired results. I don't need to go into all that much detail here, though I did find this interesting article on the subject which anyone looking for more information can read. There is even a bit at the end about worsted wool. Suffice it to say that the "standard finis...