If you're someone who sees me on a regular basis, you can probably surmise that I have a healthy affinity for plaid. I wear it sort of a lot, and it's recently been seeping into my life in other ways. My family heritage is Scottish, and although liking a certain pattern is hardly hereditary, I do think that I might be more interested in the origins of the different tartans because of it.
A little while ago, I saw a really great wool plaid blanket from The Scottish Weaver in Domino Magazine (which I promptly bought), and I was just looking through the new issue of Domino, and they have a whole story dedicated to plaid!
( Here's me snuggling with my plaid blanket! )
In one of the photos, there were some plaid plates on a wall, and as I was scrambling through the notes to see where I could buy them, I noticed that one of the tartans they came in was Farquharson - my surname, Finlay, is a sept of the Farquharson clan (as is MacCartney! - i know, i know, the spelling is different ). It's not really one of the clan names you see around a lot, so it was really cool to me that this tartan is used for things other than kilts.
( my cat would NOT get off me, so he's in the picture )
Both of my grandfathers are Scottish, and the surname on my mother's side is Blackwood, which is a sept of the Douglas clan - much more famous, and you see their tartan a lot more, usually in school uniforms.
This is the Douglas tartan:
The Farquharson clan motto is "Fide et Fortitudine" - which means "with faith and fortitude". I really like that.
Each Scottish clan usually has its own tartan and crest - this is the Farquharson crest:
These are the four different Farquharson tartans:
Farquharson Modern:
Farquharson Ancient:
Farquharson Muted:
Farquharson Weathered:
Not sure which one this is on these cups - muted? maybe?
They don't have the plates from the magazine on the Anta site ( the decorating firm that makes them, among other things), but there are lots of other things they make with the Farquharson tartan, like teapots!
I've never been to Scotland, but I really want to go soon. I guess in the meantime, I can just incorporate massive amounts of plaid into my life!
Tartan vs Plaid. Discuss. ;-)
Posted by: Stan Lee | October 29, 2007 at 08:51 AM
Ha - i have no clue what the difference is! Here's my guess - plaid refers to the pattern, but a tartan is a specific plaid that represents a family? Except in Harry Potter, they always call Professor McGonagall's dressing gown tartan, so maybe British people call it tartan no matter what.
oh wait - i just asked my British boss, and he said that plaid is a made up word, and we should all call it tartan. I'm changing the title of this post.
Posted by: amber finlay | October 29, 2007 at 09:41 AM
tartan originally was the celtic word for cloth back. As the freezing cold conditions they wore quite thick durable cloth. I believe the colouring system came in a lot later to identify clans... during constant battles when people started killing their own clansman. So they brought in the colour system.
Plaid was for the gaelic version. There were gaelic people in scotland but gaelic is mainly irish
went on a holiday up to scotland in august
Posted by: Mikej | November 04, 2007 at 12:50 PM
I would like to buy douglas clan material for my son in law. He is a Morton from the Douglas clan and I am a Davidson, I think from the Douglas clam. Can you help me. kathy
Posted by: Kathy Stupar | November 23, 2007 at 06:12 PM