When Mr. Mouse thought it was a good idea to weave a kilt.

Mr. Mouse here...

So I was asked to attend be a groomsman in a fancy dress party friends wedding. Now, when I say fancy dress, I mean it in the most literal sense of the word. We shall all be wearing kilts. 

Little did I know going into this just how much it costs to rent or buy a kilt. Traditional kilts in your family's tartan can be purchased from a few different sources in Scotland. Most of these companies must weave a minimum quantity of your family tartan before creating you a bespoke kilt. This becomes expensive quickly when you only want one item made.

On top of that my family does not have a tartan because we are from English/Irish decent. Irish tartans are often regionally based. To the best of my knowledge the Angus tartan pictured below is one of two tartans that are associated with my family linage and geography. The Aberdeen tartan would be the other, but I don't particularly like how it looks, so I am claiming the former.

Well that brings me to the crazy plan at hand... I'm going to weave the required yardage, at an eye crossing 36 ends per inch, and hand stitch together a traditional Irish kilt. What could go wrong? The yarn is already on its way from Jaggerspun and I look forward to warping on the loom for a test swatch this weekend.

To make matters worse, and technically more historically accurate, I am doing so on a loom that is not wide enough for the fabric I need. When kilts were first hand woven the looms of the day were small and made fabric about 20 inches wide. On me that would be an Irish inspired mini-skirt. Two long stretches of fabric would be seamed to make the required length and that is just what I'll be doing. This means I will be weaving approximately 20 yards of this incredibly fine wool to literally and figuratively 'cover my arse'.

I'll be documenting most of the process for an ongoing blog series full of tips, tricks, mistakes, and maybe a little fun. I hope to be able to post a bit about the progress each week, but we all know about the best laid plans of mice and men.