The Hunt for Pink & Black Tartan

For the past 2 years, Team Bond Girls have worn their signature pink and black kilts, designed and sewed by our own Vice-Skip, Cindy. They have served their purpose well during our competitions. This year, we are on the hunt for a new tartan, and our first stop is Downtown LA's Fashion District. This is THE place to go for your fashion needs. There's everything from silks to cottons, fleece, lace, spandex, upholstery...you name it, they've got it and for a very good price.

FASHION DISTRICT INFORMATION

Our first lesson in fabric shopping is never use the term "tartan." No one in this area has any roots in the Scottish culture. "Plaid" is the best way to get results. Otherwise, people will just stare at you blankly.

The second lesson we learned is that there's not ton of plaid out there. On top of that, pink and black plaid is extremely rare, even for the Fashion District.

Lesson Number Three: You always find the right fabric in the first store you go into. Amazingly, we saw some plaid fabric on display by the doorway of store called Natalie's. Hidden under yards and yards of fabric, we found a more black than pink plaid. It was of good kilt-making material. We had really good luck to find something so rare on our first try. Although, we did want to find something a little pinker; so we visited a whole bunch of stores nearby with a swatch of the original plaid material to show the vendors what we were looking for.

We walked up and down the block in the rain. Sometimes it was easy. Plaid wasn't really something everyone carried; so in and out we went. Some stores weren't as organized as others; so we had to squeeze through fabric pathways and dig under rolls and rolls of cloth. We found some patterns that were really close...a few pink and black tartans tottered on the edge of being purple. It wasn't exactly what we were looking for; so we hesitantly put them back. It was a futile search because the fabric back at Natalie's was waiting for us to take it home.

There was a bonus as well. The cost for the material to make all our new kilts ended up equaling the cost of what it would have been for 1 kilt at another fabric store. We came home with a steal. Thank you, Fashion District!

The hunt for pink and black tartan is now over. Team Bond Girls are very excited about their new and improved uniforms. We will send updates on our progress.

- Domino