With time to spare- Tweed

Finding myself in Edinburgh before going on to Glasgow, I did not have much time before the train, so had to choose between many possibilities.  Rather than going to see the Lewis Chessmen (which I had also missed in London, but found out upon my return that they will actually be visiting New York in two months' time), I decided on seeing the Museum of Childhood instead.  That was a good thing, too, as directly across from it was the address of the one and only proper kilt makers in Edinburgh that I had indirectly heard about.  With ten minutes to go before the museum opened, I popped in there to see what they had on offer- a small collection of fabrics (made not on the premises but nearby at the mill), ready made scarves and the like, and a fun box of "cabbage" (left over fabrics) outside.

Tweed having caught my attention for a while now, always hearing about Harris Tweed and seeing it mentioned in every trendy American men's collection for the past two years, I have thus avoided it for that very reason.  But the history of tweed itself, and its infinite variations, are utterly compelling, and had I more time, I would surely have visited the Isle of Harris where they manufacture it.  Alas, time was pressing and it would have taken too many logistics to get there and see it properly.  Fortunately, I was able to get a small taste of tweed at Geoffrey (Tailor)/Edinburgh Old Town Weaving Co. and picked up some fabrics- and, as usual, it was hard to resist the "cabbage" too (I did pick up one thing from it, a blue and green number which, come to think of it, reminds me now of my first elementary school uniform).

With fabric in hand, it was then off to the museum, the subject of the next post.

with a Cutter and Tailor Academy diploma front and centre

a selection of the fabrics on offer (after we moved bolts around)