MacDonald
This is one variant — a specific cloth: this exact thread count and colourway, with its own provenance below. It is one weaving of the sett (the scale-free proportion — the same cloth at any scale or shade), whose colour order is pattern GRGRGKRBRBRBRBRBRKGRGRG.
Sourced from logan-1831. It is a 23 stripe tartan.
Original link /posts/logans-scottish-gael/
Provenance
James Logan recorded the MacDonald sett in 1831, on page 404 of the Table of Clan Tartans in The Scottish Gaël — the earliest systematic published collection of clan setts. Logan gives the stripe widths in eighths of an inch, measured across the cloth and reflected about each end (a half-sett):
2½ green · ½ red · 1 green · 1½ red · 8 green · 8 black · ½ red · 8 blue · 1½ red · ¾ blue · ½ red · 5 blue · ½ red · ¾ blue · 1½ red · 8 blue · ½ red · 8 black · 8 green · 1½ red · 1 green · ½ red · 5 green
Rendered at 8 threads to the eighth-inch that is G/20 R4 G8 R12 G64 K64 R4 B64 R12 B6 R4 B40 R4 B6 R12 B64 R4 K64 G64 R12 G8 R4 G/40 — the eighths are the captured data, and the threadcount is derived from them at that stated factor. How many threads an eighth of cloth held depends on the weave's density, so the factor is a display calibration, not Logan's count; the sett's identity lives in the proportions, which the eighths record directly. Logan named his colours rather than dyeing to a standard, so the palette here is the Dictionary's modern reading of his names.
See Logan's Scottish Gaël for the full table and method.
Related setts
Later records of the MacDonald name adjusted Logan's counts: MacDonald of Glencoe; MacDonald; MacDonald #2; MacDonald #3. Compare their thread counts with Logan's above.
Dataset — provenance for this record, inherited from the source manifest
- source
- Logan, The Scottish Gaël (1831)
- data captured from
- https://archive.org/details/scotishgalorcel02logagoog
- data date
- 1831 (this record)
- licence
- Public domain
Capture chain — the hands this data passed through, oldest first; each capture carries its own licence
- James Logan, The Scottish Gaël (first edition) 1831 · Public domain
the printed Table of Clan Tartans, vol. II pp. 401-408, plus the Duke of Sussex plate - Internet Archive scan
the digitised first edition the transcription was made from, cross-checked against the OCR - Tartan Dictionary transcription — Logan's Scottish Gaël 2026-06 · CC BY-SA 4.0
by-eye transcription of the Table of Clan Tartans and the Duke of Sussex plate — depths in eighths of an inch, rendered at 8 threads per eighth (a display calibration anchored by the Register's Abercrombie ×8 stripe-for-stripe match); method and match report in the linked post - this dictionary
each re-capture is a git commit to data/sources
Thread count
G/40 R4 G8 R12 G64 K64 R4 DB64 R12 DB6 R4 DB40 R4 DB6 R12 DB64 R4 K64 G64 R12 G8 R4 G/20
One full sett is 1108 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| G | #008B2A #008B2A | oklch(55.4% 0.170 145.9) |
| K | #000000 #000000 | oklch(0.0% 0.000 0.0) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
Sample pattern
Nearest tartan variants
The nearest existing variants by ΔTartan distance, with this cloth at the top so the swatches line up against it.
Neighbour map
Every grey dot is one of 13621 variants placed by the first two principal components of the ΔTartan feature space (42% of its variance). Red is this tartan; blue dots are its nearest — click one to open its page.
ID: /variants/s23/g20r2g4r6g32k32r2db32r6db3r2db20r2db3r6db32r2k32g32r6g4r2g10~x2/