Here’s something pretty wonderful for anyone who likes tartan. Our amazing tech team has been beavering away for months on a new (free) online Design-your-own-tartan feature. And it’s now ready for limited **Invitation Only ** beta launch.

So what’s new, you may ask. There have been online tools letting you create tartans for years. Well, yes, sort of… But this one’s different. Very different. Firstly, it far easier for the ordinary person to use than any that’s gone before. But the intuitive and user-friendly front gives access to some very powerful tools…

For example, you can load any existing tartan, and modify it! This applies both to officially recorded tartans, and ones that other Scotweb members have designed and published in the new Gallery feature.

We also give you access to not one but three colour palettes. There’s a simple one for designing tartans you wish to record in the traditional way with only broadly defined colours (or perhaps for schoolchildren to use). There’s a “Weaver’s” palette, where you can even see photographs of the actual thread cones our weavers use to produce tartans. And there’s a “Pro” palette for corporate users wishing to define their brand shades precisely.

The tools let you add colours from those or from a ‘working shelf’, then pull levers, drag entries, key in numbers, and various other ways to add and re-order your chosen shades. All great fun. And uniquely (and we’ve patented this bit) it all happens instantly on your screen, without having to click and wait for a graphic image to be produced like all other systems we’ve seen. (You can, if you wish, do this too, for an even higher quality photorealistic image.)

You can also save your designs. Give them names. Give them descriptions. Explain the rationale behind their creation. Comment on other users’ designs. And (very soon) you can request an expert review of your tartan design (for a reasonable fee) from one of the world’s leading tartan authorities.

But we’ve saved the best for last. And this really is unique. You can also get your tartans woven! Yes, with just a few further mouse clicks you can order fabrics, kilts, skirts, and dozens of other products in your own unique tartan designs, in a range of top quality wools produced specially for you at one of Scotland’s most traditional mills. Many more fabrics like polyviscose or polycottons are coming soon, all in short length runs, or with bulk discounts. Pricing is much the same as our other custom-weave fabrics (i.e. a massively good bargain!). And we even give you back 10% of every sale of your tartan (either to you, perhaps your club members, or anyone who likes your design if you’ve published it in the Gallery) in the form of Scotweb Points. What’s not to love!!

There’s just one small catch. The Tartan Design facility is only available by Invitation Only, whilst we beta test the features, and finish off some of the remaining design improvements. Once you’ve been invited, you in turn can invite a few other friends (up to 5) who you think might like it. But we want to keep numbers limited until we have all systems functioning smoothly. We’d also appreciate if you let us know about any confusions or problems you come across meanwhile, in return for being let in early.

But as an esteemed reader of this blog, I’d be happy to invite you personally. Contact me via the “Want to Contribute” link to the right. But note, first you should register with the Scotweb membership system (which is free). And when contacting me, include the email address you used to register there. That’s necessary as I have to send the invitation to the same address.

Hope you think it’s as cool as we do. This is going to be big! So why not be one of the very first to explore it?

Anyone interested in Scotland is likely to like this: scotlandsimages.com is a unique new images resource drawn from Scotland’s national collections: The National Archives; The National LIbrary; the National Museums; the National Trust for Scotland; and the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments. Between them they ought to be able to rustle up a few good pics!

From my brief but highly enjoyable looks around so far I have to say it’s a far superior site than one has come to expect from official bodies. Usage is licensed, so the larger sized images are understandably watermarked. But you can search and browse freely without having to register. And anyone can register free for extra facilities. In other words, a big thumbs-up.

It’s one of those things I liked so much I just wanted to share. Enjoy.

For anyone who has followed the outrageous story of one Englishman’s single-handed efforts in recent years to destroy one of the most cherished and beautiful parts of Scotland’s national heritage, namely Harris Tweed, purely for personal gain… read on. There’s great news!

Firstly, let’s briefly recap. Harris Tweed has a history quite unlike any other woven textile. So rare and unique is it, that the British Monarch has decreed, by special Act of Parliament, that to carry that name, Harris Tweed may only ever be handwoven by the islanders of Lewis, Harris, Uist and Barra, in their homes, using pure virgin wool that has been dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides, which lie many miles into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Scotland.

The exceptional character and beauty of Harris Tweed can be attributed to the fact that it is the world’s only fabric produced in commercial quantities by truly traditional methods. Hundreds of distinctive patterns have evolved over the centuries, each unique in appearance but unmistakable as Harris Tweed. Its characteristically coarse but subtle designs in complex natural shades have traditionally gone mostly into gentlemen’s jackets and ladies skirts. But latterly this fabric had been finding a new market in the high fashion world, the artisan crafts world, and even in such landmark products as the famous special edition Nike Harris Tweed training shoe - now a valued collector’s item.

So far so good. An exceptional product with an exceptional history and an even more exceptional future, one might presume.

But sadly, no. A few years ago, along came a Yorkshireman who owned, amongst other things, a large business selling jackets. He sold a lot of Harris Tweed jackets, and presumably didn’t like to do so in a competitive market where other people could also sell Harris Tweed jackets at a price that they considered fair. It seems he preferred the idea of being the only person in the world who could sell Harris Tweed jackets, which would mean he could put his prices up and make a lot more money. So he bought the entire industry.

Yes, that’s right. He took over the entire production of Harris Tweed. And overnight, he cut off supplies to almost everyone else who had been buying it. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he slashed the range of patterns produced to… four. At a stroke, centuries of tradition was wiped off the face of the earth.

To the many lovers of Harris Tweed, and of Scottish heritage, this came as nothing less than an outrage. It has been compared to the idea of one supermarket chain buying up every whisky distillery in Scotland, closing all but a handful regardless of the huge and much loved diversity of flavour that exists amongst the hundreds of rare malts, and selling these few only through their own checkouts. A scandal, indeed.

And there this wonderfully special chapter of Scottish history seemed to die.

But it didn’t. Fortunately, this much-reviled individual had not been able to buy the rights to Harris Tweed itself, but only to the existing output. And enough strength of spirit (and eye for their real long-term future) existed amongst some of the Islanders, that almost immediately moves began to be made to initiate new sources of independent weaving on the Islands.

Here at Scotweb we are proud to have played a small part in this vital process of restoring our ancient traditions. We had built up a substantial physical archive of rare Harris Tweed fabric samples, for the dozens of patterns that we had been marketing through our web site. We were delighted to be able to share these with the rebel weavers, to form the basis for their new recreated ranges.

It’s been a slow process. But we’re delighted to announce that we are at last, again, able to accept orders for authentic Harris Tweed products. Currently we are taking orders for Ladies Skirts in Harris Tweed, but soon we will also be able to offer fabrics, and many other items too. Delivery of fabric lengths and garments may initially be a little slower than before. Whilst our independent weavers rebuild their stocks of fabrics, each pattern ordered will have to be specially woven to order, with a portion going to the purchaser and another part going into stock for off-the-shelf dispatch.

So not only are we delighted to announce the return of Harris Tweed. But by ordering, you can feel good for playing your own small part in protecting and restoring Scottish heritage. So long live the Revolution! Long live the independent weavers. Long live Harris Tweed.

All this talk of economic crisis can be a little depressing, can’t it? And we offer all our sympathies to anyone in real difficulties.

But have you noticed how the media always prefer to focus on the bad-news side of things? The truth is that every cloud has a silver lining. So first-time house buyers are now finding it a little easier, for example. And here’s another major plus for Americans buying authentic Scottish goods from the UK…

Less than one year ago, the British currency was ridiculously over-valued, trading at over 2.10 US dollars to the UK pound. Well, recently it’s been falling rapidly, and as I write is trading at 1.55 dollars to the pound (£0.64 to $1). This means that all our prices are more than 25% cheaper in real terms than they were a few months ago!

Let me repeat that: all Scotweb’s prices are

the cost to American customers earlier this year!

So if that’s not something to smile about, I don’t know what is!!

I liked these…

Teacher to class: ‘Two negatives make a positive. But two positives never make a negative.’ Pupil: ‘Aye, right.’

A Glasgow woman goes to the dentist and settles down in the chair. ‘Comfy?’asks the dentist. ‘Govan,’ she replies.

A pregnant teenage girl phones her dad at midnight and says: ‘Can you come and get me? I think ma water has broken’ ‘Okay,’ says her dad. ‘Where are you ringing from? ‘Fae my knickers tae ma feet. ‘

What did the male Siamese twins from Glasgow call their autobiography ..? Oor Wullie.  

A guy walks into an antiques shop and says: ‘How much for the set of antlers?’ ‘Two hundred quid,’ says the bloke behind the counter’ ‘That’s affa dear,’ says the guy. ‘Aye yer right!’ replies the bloke  

Did you hear about the fella who liked eating bricks and cement? He’s awa’ noo.

After announcing he’s getting married, a boy tells his pal he’ll be wearing the kilt. ‘And what’s the tartan?’ asks his mate. ‘Oh, she’ll be wearing a white dress,’ 

Ten cows in a field. Which one is closest to Iraq ? Coo eight.

Three wee jobbies sitting on the pavement. Which one’s a Musketeer? The dark tan yin. 

A Scotsman in London is having trouble phoning his sister from a telephone box. So he calls the operator who asks in a plummy voice: ‘Is there money in the box? ‘Naw, it’s just me,’ he replies. 

While getting ready to go out, a wee wifie says to her husband: ‘Do you think I’m getting a wee bit pigeon chested?’ And he says: ‘Aye, but that’s why I love you like a doo.’  

What was the name of the first Scottish cowboy? Hawkeye The Noo.  

What do you call a pigeon that goes to Aviemore for its holidays? A skean dhu.  

How many Spanish guys does it take to change a lightbulb? Just Juan. 

‘What’s the difference between The Rolling Stones and an Aberdeen sheep farmer? The Rolling Stones say: ‘Hey you, get off of my cloud.’ And an Aberdeen sheep farmer says: ‘Hey McLeod, get off of ma ewe. 

‘What do you call an illegitimate Scottish insect? A wee fly b*d. 

Did you hear about the BBC Scotland series that features the queue for the toilets at Waverley Station? It’s called The Aw’ Needin’ Line.  

Why was the Chinese restaurant so bad? Because the chef was Lou Ping. 

While being interviewed for a job as a bus driver, a guy is asked: ‘What would you do if you had a rowdy passenger?’ ‘I’d put him off at the next stop,’ he says. ‘Good. And what would you do if you couldn’t get the fare?’ ‘I’d take the first two weeks in August,’ he replies. 

A Glasgow man - steaming and skint - is walking down Argyle Street when he spots a guy tinkering with the engine of his car! ‘What’s up Jimmy?’ he asks. ‘Piston broke,’ he replies.. ‘Aye, same as masel…

As some of you may know, my fellow Scotweb Director, Adele, and I have recently taken delivery of a brand new package. And eventually we even managed to give her a name: so say hello to Amity. I’m delighted to say that not only does she enjoy a full set of fingers, toes, and all the rest, but she seems generally very happy with her life in this world, and so has been quite a delight to (start to) get to know.

Anyhow, my sincere thanks to all who’ve been sending their well-wishes, and apologies to anyone who has been waiting to hear back from me and hasn’t - thanks for your patience! I’m slowly getting back to work, but it’s hard when home is so rewarding! Please bear with me if I”m even less efficient than normal… I trust you’ll understand.

Oh, and by the way, as anyone who knows us will perhaps not be surprised to hear, she’s already been earning her keep! Check out her first modeling session (and probably not her last!) playing a starring role on the homepage of our Scottish Cashmere site. The silky-smooth Alpaca blanket is genuinely a huge favourite of hers already. So sorry for the tacky advert, but if you know any new mums and want a pressie they’ll really adore, take a tip from a proud new dad and look no further. Really - hugely recommended!

Check out the fabulous Fabric RangeMost of us get a bit confused with all the different measurement scales around. Personally, I think in (metric) Celsius when it’s cold outside, but (imperial) Fahrenheit when the weather is hot. Well, it makes sense… 100 degrees is roasting, and 0 degrees is freezing. That’s all I need to know.

But this also causes us issues as a worldwide exporter. Most Americans have little idea how long a metre is… any more than Europeans understand yards. (In fact, they’re much the same size, just about 10% apart.)

And our weavers are just as bad. Most mills want us to send them orders measured in metres. But then they describe their fabric widths in inches, and weights in ounces. It’s a good old muddle.

So we’re doing our wee bit to help. Whichever system you’re used to, you’ll now find that all lengths and prices in our world-beating range of over 16,000 Fabrics available as cut lengths are now listed in BOTH imperial and metric measures. And when you come to order, you can specify yards or metres… whichever suits you best; we’ll know exactly what you mean and get it cut correctly.

And that’s not all! The other big improvement is that you can now order exactly the amount you need, without having to buy in whole metres. 4.6 yards? No problem! (And yes, I know that’s a decimal fraction of an imperial measure… as I say, it’s confusing… isn’t it!).

Following on from our recent video on how to measure yourself for a kilt, here is another mini epic, this time setting out to show how to put on and wear a full formal kilt outfit. Experienced kilt wearers may well know most of this already. But for those relatively recent to kilt wearing, there can be a lot of uncertainty as to how to put all the bits on properly. It’s certainly one of the most common types of question we’re asked. Hopefully this will make it all a lot clearer!

*Please note: *our growing video collection can always be found at http://www.scotweb.co.uk/info which is the best address to link to if you want to include this resource on your own web site. The reason is that this address will never change, whilst the video hosting link might if we update the video sometime.

We’re very excited today! After many months of hard work, we’ve just gone public with the full-scale redesign of our web site. So now we’re holding our breath to find out what everyone else thinks of it! How about being one of the first? Pretty please. :-)

At the moment the new design has been applied to only one of our specialist web sites: Scottish Cashmere Store. The site is fully working, and has more features and facilities than ever before… but all within what we hope is a clearer, cleaner, more efficient layout. I’ll describe below a little about what we’ve been aiming for. Please tell us where there is still room for improvement!

Scotweb’s New Look!This is a very big deal for us. We’ve had to go right back to basics and asked ourselves what we’re all about. Since we launched in 1995 (Scotland’s very first secure-ecommerce company) the web and the world has changed a lot. For example, in the past few years, the world of kilts and tartan has suffered massive damage from the spread of the dreadful ‘tartan tat’ outlets selling copycat rubbish. Our redesign (even including our new logo) is partly about making it clear that we have never touched that stuff, and never will. We only deal in quality, both of product and in our standards of service. Does it work?

But also, as we’ve grown to now offer by far the world’s largest range of kilts and tartan products (for example), we were finding our existing web site was just getting too dense and complex for many people to understand. So we’ve tried to find a new, better balance of making important information available, but without it being overwhelming. What do you think?

Bear in mind that our customers range from expert authorities and enthusiasts, to complete beginners. So the site needs to be easy enough for either to buy either individual items, or put together a complete outfit, with easy access to all the choices that are possible along the way, but guidance at every turn if uncertain. We’ve tried to build in processes that assist with this, with our Outfit Builder, our Tartan Finder, and with the purchasing process. Where could we do it better?

If you see anything at all that you either find confusing, not working, or just downright wrong… we would be extremely grateful if you could take a moment to let us know. There’s a Contact link, hopefully obviously positioned, at the top and bottom of every page!

One of the most common concerns we hear from customers buying a kilt online or over the phone is anxiety about getting the measurements right. In fact, the online diagrams and instructions we’ve published for years are so well-refined that provided the guidance is followed, we very rarely have errors. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more we can do to help!

So here is our latest video - a simple step by step guide to taking your own measurements for a perfectly fitting traditional 8 Yard Kilt. We’ll soon be adding another for casual kilts, where the measurements are different.

Note that not all kiltmakers use exactly the same criteria. But since we’ve been doing this longer than any other company on earth, we think we know the best way to get it exactly right!