Help Centre

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Fabrics from stock, or woven to order

by Dr Nick Fiddes

In many cases, how we actually produce a fabric may be of secondary importance to you. For a large proportion of our customers, the key decisions are based on factors such as material quality, speed of dispatch, and price. However, it may help you to understand your choices if we tell you that produce and offer three main types of fabric:

  1. Off-the-Shelf fabrics that are in production at one of the major weaving mills, and that we can source for you normally within a few days; and
  2. Woven-to-Order fabrics, including wools and silks, that we can produce for you affordably at our own small mill deep in the Scottish borders, in the traditional manner;
  3. Printed-to-order fabrics, which are available in almost any pattern for rapid production, with lower minimum volumes.

If speed is important to you, you may wish to limit your choices to off-the-shelf or printed fabrics. However, for unusual tartans where traditional quality is a priority for you, our woven-to-order service opens up a huge range of possibilities.

To limit your choices to either range, just choose that option in the Advanced Search area of our tartan finder. (This may be combined with other filters too.) However, unless you have a specific reason for preferring your traditional fabric to be bespoke or off the shelf, we'd recommend using the filter that indicates dispatch times in most cases.

Please note that fabric production times are a guideline only - due to variable weaving times, yarn stock etc these can vary.

 What if my fabric is out of stock?

It is inevitable that tartan fabrics will occasionally disappear temporarily from stock. Weavers try to predict demand. But a single large order can take all remaining stocks overnight. And that material may then take weeks or months to be rewoven, depending on their schedules.

This can happen with any fabric. But our experience is that it is particularly common with our budget ranges, probably because more specialist materials are generally sold in smaller volumes. We offer you the widest range of fabrics from every possible supplier to give you the maximum choice. But we cannot guarantee actual availability until a firm order is placed and confirmed.

In the event that a fabric you order is out of stock, we will normally offer you several options. For example we may recommend alternative fabrics in the same tartan from other weavers. Or we may be able to suggest alternative tartans that will equally suit your needs. Otherwise we can keep your purchase on back-order if there is no immediate deadline. Or you can, of course, cancel your order entirely.

If you choose to wait until your fabric is available again, and its price rises in the interim, we will honour the original price. But if you choose a substitute tartan that is more expensive than the version you originally ordered, we cannot, unfortunately, offer to pay the difference. Unscheduled delays in availability are a normal part of this business, and all we can do is give you our best advice and let you yourself decide whether to wait, to cancel, or to seek alternatives.



Categories Buying fabrics & tartan products Find tartans by availability
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