![]() ![]() These fabrics are remarkable survivors of a past age of very skilled weavers. There are some examples of such cloth dating back over 3000 years found in Urumchi, China with other examples from findings in the historic Salt mines of Halstatt in Austria. Any woven cloth with a regular repeating series of threads of different colours in both the warp and weft would be considered as tartan. Woven cloth exists all over the world, anywhere that had fibre, of any sort, would have created fabric often with stripes, lines, and ultimately checks. Whatever the source it seems that it didn’t necessarily mean a patterned cloth, but more a long lasting or valuable one. There are even thoughts that it might have come from the City of Tyre or even brought in from Central Asia by the Tartars, both somewhat spurious… ![]() The word might have come from the Old French tiretaine ( c.1247), meaning either a coarse mixed/union fabric of different warp and weft fibre or indeed a rich cloth, wool is often mentioned but it doesn’t appear that it was universal as linen or cotton was also utilised. the pattern repeats in the same colour order and proportions in every direction from the two pivot points. The majority of such patterns (or setts) are symmetrical i.e. The sequence of the warp colours (long-wise threads) is repeated in same order and size in the weft (cross-wise threads).
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