The Story
Woven,
not printed
A printed tartan is a picture of cloth. A woven one is cloth. The atelier draws the warp first — every vertical thread, in order, thin to thick — cures it, and only then lays the weft across it, so at each crossing the second thread genuinely passes over the first and casts the hairline shadow that cloth casts. It is four times the work of drawing a grid, and it is the only reason the set reads as wool at arm’s length.
The cats are modelled solid rather than pressed from a mould, which is why the three on a set sit differently — one upright, one folded, one halfway to leaving. Their eyes are the last thing: two touches with the point of a pin, placed slightly off centre, because a cat looking straight at you is a toy and a cat looking just past you is a cat. The buttons have their holes pressed while the clay is still soft so the rims lift the way a real button’s do, and the scroll on the sage tip is one stroke — begun at the tail, thickened through the belly, lifted at the head.
A cat looking straight at you is a toy.