Made in Scotland

H and I have just returned from a wonderful, chilled out, relaxed week spent on Argyll time with family on the west coast of Scotland. We have tasted whisky, gone fishing in the loch (unsuccessfully. both times) and cheated our way up a mountain (all hail the invention of the cable car). I have more pictures than I thought could fit on my memory card and just a smidgen of sunshine in my cheeks.

And when not forming part of an increasing court of admirers to H's baby cousin (who is smiley and adorable, and totally worthy of the rapt adoration he receives) I have also been knitting.

Some good friends of ours are expecting their second baby in April and as they already have a handknitted Baby Surprise Jacket courtesy of baby number 1, I needed to deviate away from my staple baby diet, and with a little help from the internet I found the very thing.

Three balls of Rowan Wool Cotton:

For a girl - Mother of Pearl pink - called Tender (951)

Or for a boy - Cypress green/blue (968)

Our friends are expecting just the one baby so this is a one for you, one for me knitting project - whichever doesn't suit the baby that arrives in April will wait for the next baby.

The patterns I chose are Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's Baby Mine and Baby Yours which come across the seas as hard copy patterns from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. They took about a week to arrive from the date that I ordered and I then substituted the Wool Cotton for the Socks that Rock Mediumweight.

Cue one trip to Scotland and a bit of Abracadabra and we have:


Baby Mine - started on 14th and finished on 17th. The edging pattern requires a bit of concentration but after that it is a very simple and quick knit with minimal making up so when you're done knitting, you're almost entirely finished.


The edging is really sweet and now all I need are the perfect pearly pink buttons to set it off.

I dipped into my third ball of Wool Cotton to finish the second half of the cast off, so if you were cautious on length it might be possible to knit this jacket out of just two balls.

While Baby Mine may have been knit in Scotland, Baby Yours took things one step further and went to meet some mountains:


This is the view from half way up Aonach Moir, looking down on Fort William and Loch Linnie.


And this, despite the wind, is a pretty perfect knitting spot. You can see by my posture, if nothing else, that this is where Baby Yours grew by a few rows under the watchful eye of Ben Nevis' north shoulder.

I finished on Friday morning:

At least, finished apart from the buttons.


I made the newborn size for both patterns but made the body a little longer on the Baby Yours jacket so that I could fit in two cable repeats. Other than that I have (for once) knitted both patterns as written.

Now all I have to do is wait to see which one we keep!