HOW THE PATTERN IS WOVEN

Two sets of stripes,
one check.

A check is not printed on. It is woven in.

Folded lengths of tartan, gingham and houndstooth wool and cotton cloth stacked on a wooden table in soft daylight — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Stripe the warp
Repeat in the weft
Let them cross
Simple threads, rich patterns

Run coloured stripes along the warp, repeat the same stripes across the weft, and wherever they cross a new shade appears. Gingham, houndstooth and tartan are all versions of that one idea.

Updated 16 October 2026

THE SHORT ANSWER

Checks are stripes
woven both ways.

The weave and the stripe sequence
decide which check you get.

TARTAN

A sequence that mirrors

Scots law defines tartan as two or more alternating coloured stripes combining vertically and horizontally into a repeated chequered pattern.

How a sett works

GINGHAM

Two colours, plain weave

Gingham is a balanced plain-woven cotton, usually one bright colour with white. Where the coloured stripes cross, the darkest squares appear.

Compare the checks

HOUNDSTOOTH

Four dark, four light

The traditional houndstooth uses bands of four dark and four light threads both ways, woven in a 2:2 twill that gives its jagged edges.

How old it is

TELL YOUR CHECKS APART

Which check
is it?

Pick a check to see how it is built. The bar shows how complex its stripe sequence usually is.

Based on the Scottish Register of Tartans Act 2008, V&A Dundee and reference descriptions of each weave.

Check finder

Choose a checkThe Falkirk checkGinghamHoundstoothTartan

The Falkirk checkUndyed yarns

Dating from the early third century AD, it is a simpler check woven from undyed yarns, which is why it is not counted as true tartan.

GinghamTwo colours

A balanced plain weave, typically one colour with white. Early gingham imported into Europe in the 17th century was striped rather than checked.

Houndstooth4 dark, 4 light

Alternating bands of four dark and four light threads in warp and weft, woven in a 2:2 twill: two over, two under, moving one thread each pass.

TartanMany colours

Stripes of different colours and widths, repeated in the same order across the weft. Most setts are symmetrical, mirroring at pivot points.

Sources: Scottish Register of Tartans Act 2008, section 2; V&A Dundee (2023) on the Glen Affric and Falkirk textiles; Wikipedia entries for gingham, houndstooth and tartan.

TWO DATES WORTH KNOWING

Checks are
very old cloth.

One date for the oldest true tartan in Scotland,
one for the oldest houndstooth found so far.

1500–1600 AD

Most probable date of the Glen Affric tartan

Radiocarbon testing of a tartan found in a Glen Affric peat bog gave a range of 1500 to 1655 AD, most probably 1500 to 1600, making it the oldest known true tartan found in Scotland.

OLDEST TARTAN · V&A DUNDEE

1500–1200 BC

Date of Bronze Age houndstooth textiles

The oldest Bronze Age houndstooth textiles found so far come from the salt mine at Hallstatt in Austria.

OLDEST HOUNDSTOOTH · HALLSTATT

The Glen Affric piece measures around 55 cm by 43 cm. Dye analysis by National Museums Scotland confirmed indigo or woad in the green and found no artificial dyes.

A black and white houndstooth wool fabric and a blue gingham cotton laid side by side, seen close up — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

READING A THREAD COUNT

A tartan
written as numbers.

A tartan is recorded by counting the threads of each colour in its sett. The count captures both the colours and the width of every stripe.

Find the colours
Each colour gets a short code, such as K for black, R for red and Y for yellow.
Count the threads
A count like K4 R24 K24 Y4 means 4 black, 24 red, 24 black and 4 yellow threads.
Mirror at the pivots
In a symmetrical tartan the sequence reverses at the first and last colours, the pivots, so only half the sett needs writing.
Scale it to the cloth
The count can be reduced in proportion, so the same tartan fits a necktie as well as a kilt with a sett of about 6 inches.

THE TARTAN REGISTER

New tartans
are still recorded.

The Scottish Register of Tartans Act 2008 set up a register, kept in electronic form, to preserve tartans and be a source of information about them. Anyone may apply to register a tartan.

An application must include a coloured picture of the tartan, a description of its colours, thread count and sett, and its name. The Keeper must refuse a design that is not a tartan, or one that is the same as, or too similar to, a tartan already registered.

Close-up of a wooden loom with coloured warp threads and a shuttle weaving a red and green tartan — AI-generated image, not a photograph of a real person or place.

Questions

Questions people ask

Is tartan the same as plaid?

In American English, plaid usually means tartan. Tartan is cloth with crossing horizontal and vertical bands in several colours, forming repeating patterns called setts.

What is a sett?

The sett is the pattern of a particular tartan: the series of stripes, at set widths, that cross at right angles. It can also mean the written thread count that records it.

Where does the word gingham come from?

Nobody is sure. Suggestions include the town of Guingamp in Brittany, a route into English through Dutch, and the Malay word genggang, meaning striped.

Was tartan ever banned?

Highland dress was restricted under the Dress Act 1746, after the Jacobite rising of 1745. The ban lasted about two generations, and the Act was amended by the Use of Highland Dress Act 1782.

Can I register my own tartan?

Under the 2008 Act any person may apply to the Keeper of the Scottish Register of Tartans, with a fee. The name must not already be on the Register, and the design must not be too similar to an existing tartan.

Two sets of stripes,
one check.