Royal Stewart Patterns

The Royal Stewart Pattern above is represented in the Tartan Colour Disk to its right. The pattern repeats from top, around to top again. It is symmetrical left to right, clearly showing why such tartans are called symmetrical.

Most tartans are symmetrical, and by showing them in a colour disk, we can easily compare tartan patterns, A colour disk "normalises" any pattern, ignoring how many threads are in the pattern, and allowing patterns to be compared. In a sense, the colour scheme can also be ignored and it is just the contrasting bands within the pattern that emerge.

Apart from the more obvious varieties of Stewart tartan, a great number of other famous tartans employ a similar pattern. Drummond above reduces to the disk on its left. By using two shades of blue around the white line, a misty effect results. The green has expanded to become the secondary under check and the yellow and white that over check the now absent black, are thinned to guard the blue band.

The Racing Stewart illustrates how the basic pattern may be altered from Royal Stewart: the blue is lightened and expanded to replace the large red under check. Blue is then "replaced" by white, as is yellow, and the green has been lightened. The remaining red under check is simplified by removing the black over checking.

The result for Racing Stewart is a simpler design, using light blue and green to highlight a simpler red feature, and the white and black support the distinctive Royal Stewart effect.

However, it was probably Stewart Black and not Royal Stewart that was the basis of Racing Stewart: The blue has invaded the large black region and pushed the remaining pattern into the lower hemisphere of the Tartan Colour Disk