Eight Types of Tartans

Basically, there are four types of tartans. There are true tartans (those with one thread count for both the warp and the weft) and false tartans (those with a different thread count for the weft than the thread count used for the warp). There are also reversing tartans and non-reversing tartans. By combining these four types of tartans in different ways, it is possible to have eight different types of tartans:

1. True Reversing: Warp: Reversing Pattern 1 Weft: Reversing Pattern 1*
2. False Reversing 1: Warp: Reversing Pattern 1 Weft: Reversing Pattern 2**
3. False Reversing 2: Warp: Reversing Pattern 2 Weft: Reversing Pattern 1
4. False Mixed 1: Warp: Reversing Pattern 1 Weft: Non-Reversing Pattern 1
5. False Mixed 2: Warp: Non-Reversing Pattern 1 Weft: Reversing Pattern 1
6. True Non-Reversing: Warp: Non-Reversing Pattern 1 Weft: Non-Reversing Pattern 1
7. False Non-Reversing 1: Warp: Non-Reversing Pattern 1 Weft: Non-Reversing Pattern2
8. False Non-Reversing 2: Warp: Non-Reversing Pattern 2 Weft: Non-Reversing Pattern 1
   

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 *The true reversing tartan is the most common type of tartan.

**An example of this is the Vaughan Welsh Tartan.

Blogpost by William Mortensen Vaughan