MacAlister
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 BRWRGGRGGRWRBRWRBRGRBRBRGRBRWRGRBRWRBRGGR.
Part of the MacAlister tartan — the named design grouping this sett with its other cloths.
Sourced from logan-1831. It is a 41 stripe tartan.
Original link /posts/logans-scottish-gael/
Provenance
James Logan recorded the MacAlister 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):
4 red · ½ light green · 3 dark green · 1 red · 1 azure · 1 red · ½ white · 1 red · 1 azure · 1 red · 3 dark green · ½ red · ¼ white · 6 red · ¼ azure · ½ red · 11 dark green · ½ red · ½ azure · 16 red · ½ azure · ½ red · 11 dark green · ½ red · ½ azure · 5½ red · ½ white · ½ red · 4 blue · ½ red · ½ white · 2½ red · 3 dark green · ½ light green · 2 red · ½ light green · 3 dark green · ¾ red · ½ white · ½ red · 2½ blue
Rendered at 8 threads to the eighth-inch that is R/32 LG4 DG24 R8 A8 R8 W4 R8 A8 R8 DG24 R4 W2 R48 A2 R4 DG88 R4 A4 R128 A4 R4 DG88 R4 A4 R44 W4 R4 B32 R4 W4 R20 DG24 LG4 R16 LG4 DG24 R6 W4 R4 B/20 — 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 MacAlister name adjusted Logan's counts: MacAlister (Logan 1831); MacAlister (Cockburn Collection 1810-20); MacAlister (Smith 1850); MacAlister (Gourlay Steele Collection). 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
R/32 G4 DG24 R8 T8 R8 W4 R8 T8 R8 DG24 R4 W2 R48 T2 R4 DG88 R4 T4 R128 T4 R4 DG88 R4 T4 R44 W4 R4 DB32 R4 W4 R20 DG24 G4 R16 G4 DG24 R6 W4 R4 DB/20
One full sett is 1432 threads.
Palette
| Colour | Shade | OKLCh |
|---|---|---|
| T | #00879F #00879F | oklch(57.4% 0.102 216.1) |
| DB | #082077 #082077 | oklch(30.0% 0.149 265.1) |
| DG | #053819 #053819 | oklch(30.0% 0.075 151.3) |
| G | #008B2A #008B2A | oklch(55.4% 0.170 145.9) |
| W | #F7F7F7 #F7F7F7 | oklch(97.6% 0.000 89.9) |
| R | #D60020 #D60020 | oklch(55.2% 0.224 25.5) |
Sample pattern
Compared to the master
This cloth is one sett of its design; the master sett (the exemplar the design is anchored on) is below for comparison.
Its ΔTartan distance from the master is 0.53 — the same measure the nearest-tartans table ranks by (0 is identical; a re-scale of the same cloth is near 0, a recolour or a different proportion further).
this sett
master sett ★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/s41/r16g2dg12r4t4r4w2r4t4r4dg12r2w1r24t1r2dg44r2t2r64t2r2dg44r2t2r22w2r2db16r2w2r10dg12g2r8g2dg12r3w2r2db10~x2/