Kilts

The Rannoch hose from House of Cheviot come in some beautiful atumn colors just perfect for this time of year!  If you have not yet looked at our 2012 offerings, please check them out.  I'm certain you'll find a color just perfect for the fall. http://www.scottishkilthose.com/rannoch.html We have some inventory left of some discontinued colors which are currently listed for sale at clearance prices on Amazon . The "Orange" shade is now replaced by our "Cinnamon" color.  And the "Mustard" color has received an upgrade, becoming richer and brigher in hue. Below you can see examples of these discontined colors side by side with their current counterparts.  (Old on the left, new on the right).  Grab the orange and (old) mustard color while stocks last!  And in the meantime, contact any one of our stockists for information about ordering these Rannoch hose in any of our twelve current shades! From left to right: Orange, Cinnamon, Mustard, New Mustard O...

This weekend is the annual Eucharistic Congress held by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte.  As campus minister for WCU, I will be in attendance Friday and Saturday manning our Campus Ministry Fundraising table in the vendor area of the event.  We will be selling Catholic tshirts and other goodies, and also items in the St. Ninian's Day papal tartan, which I designed for Pope Benedict XVI on behalf of the Scottish Catholic bishops for his visit to Scotland on Sept. 16, 2010. To help expand that fundraising effort, I will donate $75 of the purchase price of any kilt in the St. Ninian tartan ordered over my web site this Friday, Saturday or Sunday (Sept. 21-23) to Campus Ministry in the Diocese of Charlotte.  So if you were thinking about getting a kilt in this tartan, now's the time!  You can order your kilt knowing that part of your money will be going to a great cause. Of course, a percentage of the proceeds for all items sold in the St. Ninian tartan does go b...

Yesterday, Sept. 13, there was a memorial held for astronaut Neil Armstrong, who died last month. The memorial was held at the Washington National Cathedral. You can download an event program here: http://www.nationalcathedral.org/pdfs/Armstrong20120913.pdf At the start of the service, the family was processed in behind a kilted piper. Angus Sutherland, age 22, originally of Kelso (but now living in DC) was asked by the Scottish Government to pipe for the family. They wanted him wearing the Armstrong tartan, and I am happy to report that the Scottish Tartans Authority was able to connect the Scottish Embassy there with myself and I was able to provide a kilt to the piper in time for the service. He is wearing a four-yard box pleated kilt in the Armstrong modern tartan. The piper played "Mist Covered Mountains." For those interested, there is a video of the entire service on the National Cathedral's web site. If you are looking for the piper, he's at the beginning, ab...

   

             

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...

Earlier this week I was walking down the sidewalk in my kilt, on my way to procure a cup of coffee from the coffee shop at the end of the block.  It was a chilly, rather windy day.  I was dressed, if I may say so myself, rather conservatively.  I was wearing one of my MacQuarrie kilts, brown House of Cheviot Lewis hose, a tattersall shirt, sweater-vest (pullover for you Brits), and a tweed kilt jacket.  As far as "showing skin" the only flesh visible to anyone was on my face, hands, and knees. As I was walking a woman a good 10 to 15 years my senior pulled into one of the parking spaces along the sidewalk.  She opened her door and called out, "I hope you're wearing thermal underwear!"  She was smiling, so I politely smiled back, gave a little wave, and kept walking.  But in my head I was thinking, "What is it about me wearing my ethnic dress that makes you feel you can comment freely about my underwear (or lack thereof)." I've worn a kilt for more ...