Being scottish me and my husband naturally wanted to get our family kilts done but after doing some research this is what we are forced to do.
We have been interested in scotish garb and instruments namley highland bagpipes and kilts, for as long as we can remember. We recently started lokking into finding kilt wool to make a kilt or getting a ready made kilt. The thing about kilt wool is that its really expensive. " It's just wool people, it comes from sheep it is not exactally a limited resource." It is 120 dollers plus for 1 meter, just under 1 yard of fabric. You need an average of 4 meters of 60 inch wide fabric wich is over 400 dollers just for the fabric. Looking into reason why it is so expensive, being told that it was difficult to make. We know people who spin and that to make kilt fabric is not really that hard. If you are getting kilt wool from a woolen mill, wich most stores do. They have equipment that is abel to make 50 plus meter lots at a time wich is fairly easy to do. You just set the colors and leave it.
It also apperantly expensive because it is shipped straight from scotland. Wich somewhat makes sence cause shipping is expensive. But there are places in canada that do make kilt wool. One such place is in the greater vancover area. The place in van charges 2500 dollers for a 50 meter roll. Including shipping and taxes. That works out to 50 dollers a meter, wich is still fairly steep. But i am sure if you order a bunch like for a business or something that price would go down. Makes you wonder what extra they are charging for when you get it from a store that ships in from scotland.
How about supporting a canadian industry. I admit there are still some people out there that want origional, fancy scottish garb. They are usually looking for a certain tartin. But store should also offer a choice for those people who are jsut put there to find some nice wool to make their own kilt. They should sell both in store and bring in more sales. Because they are not exculding people who are less willing to pay so much for fabric. There must people others out there whom just weant to find a nice tartin.
Ready made kilts are 600 plus depending on the type and grade of wool used. Again they are not horribly difficult to make. There are patterns out there, if you have the 400 plus to spend on it.
In short we are tring to find a supplier or a store that has or is abel to supply low priced kilt wool or a wool blend tarten print that would work for making a kilt. And possibly more of a explination as to why is costs so much.
Any comments???
Jul 06, 2006 @ 02:28:51
