Fertility Rites in Tartan?

Q

Bob Delamare [email protected] (altered to avoid spam harvesting)

Clan: Weyfield School in Guildford

On behalf of the children and staff of Weyfield School in Guildford can I ask for your help, please? We have a set of costumes for our May Pole dancing team, waistcoats for the boys and skirts for the girls, 12 of each, made some years ago in a tartan fabric; a polycotton mix I guess.

One has been lost and there is no material to make a new one. Rather than make a complete new set in a new fabric, which would be an awful lot of work, I have been searching your site for a match.

The nearest I have found is the Wallace tartan but without the thin black stripe. I have tried to reproduce our pattern on your "compose your own" page. I imagine it would be quite expensive to have cloth specially woven to order but is it possible there is another tartan pattern similar to this but available off the peg?

regards, Bob

A

Dear Bob,

>Thank you for contacting House of Tartan
>
>The nearest that I can think of that might be a possibility is the Macqueen
>tartan #1209 see attached but if you would like to send us an image of one
>of your waistcoats then we could try to match this for you. However it would
>not be a poly cotton tartan as there is very little choice in this range but
>also minimum orders of 10 metres. Wool in a lightweight would be the option
>that would be most suitable I think as this gives a larger range of tartans.
>Cotton tartans were normally variations of wool tartans hence the reason
>that there may be a missing black strip. As you say it would be expensive to
>have the tartan woven to order There is a minimum requirement of 5 metre of
>single width wool at the cost of GBP sterling 33.60 per metre + VAT and
>delivery
>
>I hope this is helpful but if there is anything further please let me know

Hi Maxine,

thank you for your thoughtful reply. Attached is a scan of a waistcoat. As
you can see it is much brighter than the Macqueen, less black threads and
more red and yellow. I think the Wallace is the nearest match.

We only need a small amount. Does that

"minimum requirement of 5 metre of single width wool at the cost of GBP
sterling 33.60 per metre + VAT and delivery"

apply to light weight wool in Wallace or just to special orders?

That is to say, how much would a couple of metres of Wallace in light
weight wool cost, please?

regards, Bob

At 14:00 03/05/04, you wrote:
>Hello Bob
>
>Thanks for the image - I agree that the Wallace is the nearest match.
>
>I will send you a swatch of the lightweight wool if you forward a mailing
>address before you make a final decision. The cost of the tartan in the
>lightweight is GBP 31.00 per metre + VAT and delivery and there is no
>minimum order over a metre.

Hi again Maxine,

what are you doing working today when we down here are getting on with the fertility rituals? It being May Day.

Thanks for the offer of the swatch as I am a little concerned that the Wallace has small squares, whereas our odd one has quite large as I tried
to show by including the ruler in the picture.

regards, Bob

At 22:09 10/06/04, you wrote:

>The fabric is here and will be sent first class tomorrow

Dear Maxine,

thank you so much for all your help. Here are the children wearing their
outfits.

Put this on your "Satisfied Customer" board

Thank you, Gail