Tartan in the blood

I have fallen into my Harris Tweed stash again, and in doing so burrowed deep into my roots. It is wonderfully strange how things come together - for example, the gorgeous bark-colored wool mix yarn and the brown tartan Harris Tweed piece of fabric I had that matched it so perfectly in tone and depth and color.

The finishing of these new style of Inner Wild Cuffs which have no thumb hole but rather are open but still cover the hand has me so excited and delighted. Thinking of tartan cuffs I remembered a print of a famous painting I had years ago of Bonnie Prince Charlie {see reproduction above} and this set me off on a whole 1700's Jacobite revolution muse.

The Skye Boat Song, Flora MacDonald aiding Bonnie Prince Charlie {that's them in the third pic above} in his escape from certain death {find out more about "Highland Heroine" Flora MacDonald here} - ah everyone with Scottish roots has a little tartan in their bloodstream so that we romanticize the past.

Jacobites {fine example of one above, first pic - think Braveheart} are also often associated with tartan; of course the Highlanders who fought for the Stuarts were mostly clad in their clan tartans. Also in the 1740's, another way of displaying Jacobite sympathies was to wear a tartan waistcoat.

A prominent English Jacobite had an entire tartan suit made and it can now be seen on display at the National Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh. Our traditional tartan kilt was banned for a time after the defeat of the Jacobites because of its rebel associations.

I have just put these Cuffs in my shop and called them Bonnie Prince Cuffs - not least because they would look equally wonderful on a man.

I must just dive into my Harris Tweed stash again...