I know that this has been discussed in the past, but how would one go about setting up MAT shaders for Heavy wool fabrics such as Harris Tweeds, Scots Tartons, and/or possibly even lace.  This is in order so as to avoid the long process of having to remap some custom new dynamic clothes for either Judy, Posette, or Dork.
dph

You didn't specify, but seem to be implying how to do these with nodes.

Q1) Are you looking for procedural materials?

Q2) You said "avoid ... remap". So these items are currently UV mapped? Or did you actually mean "avoid ... mapping" and they are not currently UV mapped?

Not mapped at all, and frankly I'm becomming a bit weary lately of splitting objects in UV Mapper Pro, and then having to repair dozens of missplaced facets before I can proceed with the mapping proper.  If a procedural can be made fairly easily to handle most of the texturing without having to go to all the rigamarole of creating custom textures and/or mapping to some know existing object or clothes, then so much the better.
dph

Well, sorry to say, a procedural needs UV coordinates, too. It isn't possible to create a realistic and consistent pattern on a curved surface without UV coordinates.

A few years ago there was an interesting discussion about how cloth should be UV mapped in the Node Cult, motivated by exactly what you're asking for - plaids, tweeds, etc.
 
http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24888

Adorana gave us a thread showing how to do it right.

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25017

Pieces of cloth must be "cut" from a UV mapped rectangle, and then bent and "sewn" into place like real cloth. If not, then there are completely unmotivated stretched areas - the sort of stretching that just doesn't happen in real cloth.

However, if you have something UV mapped, you can get some pretty realistic cloth procedurals for it using matmatic and my Loom script.

Early cloth work, before the loom: http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24029

Later:
http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25810

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24550

About the only way to get away from UV mapping is PTex: not quite Poser-compatible, though...

OK, say that I managed to Split the Object in UV Mapper Pro, and laid the two halves out side by side in a planar map, instead of going to all the bother of moving vertices to comply with some known dress or coat texture, can I use a procedural to create a cloth instead that will look good and realistic?
Basically, while I don't mind doing a rough UV on these, I don't want to spend the next month just moving vertices on clothes.  I want to get away from mapping for a while and do pictures instead.
dph

Sure, you can. You can use a seamless tiled image, too.  Either way, the shader will fill the entire UV map with a pattern and the individual pieces of cloth will show some reasonable subset of the pattern, which is what real clothing does.

The matmatic Loom will make realistic woven cloth of any pattern and any colors you desire. It can do anything a real loom can do.

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25805

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25832

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25810

http://www.runtimedna.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25833

Bagginsbill, sometimes I think that you can create face texture with mathematic functions ;)

At the moment I can understand simple nodes like plaid
http://www.castleposer.co.uk/articles/material_plaid.html

Where exactly is mathmatic located?
dph

is MATmatic and is HERE 

To easily map clothes or figures, try Roadkill:
http://vimeo.com/6902104

Just load the object, tell Roadkill where to place the seams, and it'll do the rest for you.

There are of course more sophisticated UV-mappers out there, but Roadkill is free and pretty easy to use.

The link mark gave for matmatic is malformed.

Here's the correct link.

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/matmatic

i have a question.

if i have an image that i want to use for tiling. for example a pattern for the clothes. can i inside poser use distortion on the tiled textue?

thanks.

edit

Use some sort of low frequency noise node to drive the offsets on the Image_Map node. Like this.

You'll have to experiment to find the right sizes and amounts. It all depends on the object you're using.

thaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you.
this will make tiled images now 250 times better. now i can get rid of the repeated look.

i am also trying to make a cotton material for a shirt. but i dont have any luck . do oyu have any tips how to make cotton in poser?

thanks