Tribute to my wife

My wife is a wonderful knitter, and despite having to take care of me and our four small children, cook and keep the house clean, and this strange compulsion she has to knit herself a new bag every week or two, she has managed to find time to knit me some wonderful kilt hose. I thought it would be nice to showcase them all in one place here. I'm a proud and happy husband, what can I say?These are a black and white diced pair that works wonderfully well with my Highland Granite kilt, as well as many others. I've worn these mostly for formal wear.

This is a pair of brown and white (really an off-white natural color) shepherd's check hose. I love these! They go great with most all of my tartans, and my tweeds, as well. Here's a close up of them in the snow last winter.

This is the same pair, sans shoes and distracting background. She got the pattern from Lady Gainsford's book on kilt hose and knickerbocker stockings.

She took this shot of the aformentioned two hose, plus a green cable knit, for her knitting forum. The loden green pair were the very first pair of hose she knit. They turned out a bit too small, but I wear them anyway, despite her protests. (Maybe I can shame her into making me a new green pair).

This is the most recent pair she knit for me. I've only worn them once so far, but I can already tell they are going to get a lot of wear. They go great with my Armstrong kilt, and my MacQuarrie (c. 1815). I believe they will also be a good match for one of my Harris tweed kilts.

Lately she has been working with a friend of ours on knitting fancy hose cuffs, and attaching them to machine knit sock blanks. They are developing a line which will soon be available through the Scottish Tartans Museum gift shop. As the husband, I am the lucky recipient of the first pair, seen below.

What can I say, guys? If you have a choice, marry a knitter. Oh, yeah, and her cooking is fantastic!

I'm on TV!

It's official. I've had my 15 minutes of fame.

Back in June the show "North Carolina Weekend" aired a segment about the Scottish Tartans Museum. It was a really well done segment, on a show that features places within North Carolina that are recommended for a fun weekend trip.

Today, I had the thought to see if the show was archived on line. Sure enough, I found it!

http://flash.unctv.org/ncweekend/ncw_061208.html

It's the second segment in the show, about 5:55 into it. The segment itself is about 5 minutes long.

As I said, it's extremely well done. The narrator only made a few errors. For instance, he misidentified the Lochiel tartan as the Malcolm tartan -- understandable, as the kilt in questions belonged to a man surnamed Malcolm. He also stated that there are "over 4000" recorded tartans, which is technically correct, but in truth there are over 7000 recorded now with the STA.

All in all, though, a very well done and well edited segment. And I'm glad it is on line so that more folks can see it! (You may recognize one of the people interviewed...)

Gold Bros. busted for selling Isle of Skye tartan

The Scotsman newspaper has recently reported that the Gold Bros. (retailers of cheap "tartan tat" on the Royal Mile, the internet, and elsewhere) are finally being called to task for mass-producing and selling the famous Isle of Skye tartan.

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Ban-on-39Queen39s-tartan39-sales.4249779.jp

The Isle of Skye tartan is a private, copyrighted design that was the idea of Mrs. Rosemary Nicolson Samios in 1992, an Australian of Skye descent, now living in Skye. It was selected through a worldwide competition won by weaver Angus MacLeod from Lewis who produced the first commercial quantities in traditional kilt weight in 1993 at Lochcarron Weavers in North Strome. Mrs. Rosemary Samios now controls the rights to the production of this tartan through registration with the Patents Office and Lochcarron of Scotland is the main supplier of fabrics and woven accessories in this tartan, though some other suppliers have been authorized (Marton Mills, in England, produces it with permission in polyviscose, for example).

However, businesses such as the Gold Bros., and others, have long been ignoring the copyrighted status of this tartan and profitting off of someone else's beautiful design work. So it's about time they are called to task!