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The book was the idea of Ruth Bailey and Jackie Holt, who both live in Edinburgh and work in theatre costumes and props. “My sister gave me two books for my birthday, one to knit fast food and another about kitting cats. That year crazy knitting was all the rage and Ruth and I thought ‘what else could you knit’ and that’s when we thought of knitting Scottish characters as a fun idea,” Jackie told Get Creative back in 2015.

Ruth Bailey (l) and Jackie Holt (r) authors of Knit Your Own Scotland

Drawing on their creative backgrounds working with stage costumes the pair included designs for Sir Andy along with other Scottish characters including national bard Robert Burns, comedian Billy Connolly and Braveheart William Wallace.

And she said the former British number one tennis seed was an obvious choice to include in a book about Scottish heroes.

“If you think of the people who represent Scotland not just to us in the UK but to visitors from abroad then he had to be there,” Jackie said.

But as Murray has got older, Jackie has found herself wanting to return to the original pattern to bring him up to date.

“He was one of the first patterns that we did but now I’m thinking we might need to re-do him,” She said. "He’s changed quite a bit since 2012 as he’s got older. He’s definitely chunkier, he was a bit stringier when we made our design.”

Then of course there’s his famous mop of curly brown hair, which is in contrast to the neater cut he has in his knitted version. But this is where knitters can interpret the design, Jackie said.

The Andy Murray pattern is featured in Knit Your Own Scotland

The British number one tennis seed was an obvious choice to include in a book about Scottish heroes

“In our later books Ruth has given ideas on how to add more hair detail, and use embroidery strands to add different colours,” said Jackie, who has researched different wool types to find finer wool thicknesses which give a better impression of cloth.

Fans of the tennis star have been sharing their versions on social media and he’s become a handy Andy.
Jackie said: “It’s not too difficult as there’s not a huge amount of knitting to it. As long as you can do very basic knitting them most of it is doable.”

“We’ve heard of people knitting him as a prize in a raffle, or being used in tennis clubs as a mascot. There’s all sorts of reasons you might knit your own.”

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A version of this article was originally published on 9 July 2015.