GREAT EXPECTATIONS!

Wonderful news! Alastair and Dawn are expecting their first baby! We are all thrilled! There is going to be a Little MacLeod arriving in Canada which will make this baby a cousin for Ishie (4) and Alastair (3)! It will be our third grandchild and on Dawn's side it will be their first. So it is cause for celebration all round!

Grannies love nothing better than a new baby and especially in their own family! I have never been one for the rocking chair but I am definitely one for the knitting needles.

Several years ago I was in Orkney with friends and on one of our days out Dot and I came upon a craft fair in Kirkwall Town Hall. On display were some of the most beautiful knitted garments I had ever seen. The tag in the photo says "Orkney Craftsmen Guild. No. 3615".

I ended up buying this yellow baby sweater and matching tam (hat) and it has been sitting in my bottom drawer ever since. So this is going off in the post for the new baby.

Meanwhile I will get started on a bigger sweater that is my stand-by. It a pattern from Iain's mother's knitting book Paton's Woolcraft 18th edition, no date but probably late 50s or early 60s. Price 2/6. (Page 44 is shown.) It is an absolute bible of instructions, descriptions and patterns and I know this pattern will work.

The yellow needle-case is made from a piece of stitching work Alastair did at school aged about 8 years old. I sewed it on to a piece of yellow felt and folded it to make a needle-case. It is shown "as is" i.e. needles for repairing sails and needles for darning woolen socks and sweaters!