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 The exciting news this week is that, as a reward for much patient toil and not having a social life, I’ve reached the gussets, the underarm triangles that make the finished gansey that much more flexible when doing aerobics or any other outdoor winter workouts.
I usually start on the gussets after about 14 inches or so, keep going for another 3 or 4 inches, and then divide for the chest (at which point I stop knitting in the round, but switch to back-and-forth). If the chest (which is also the sleeve depth) is 10 inches long, that should make the overall length of the finished pullover 28-plus inches (i.e., quite long. Maybe it’ll be a cold winter.)
 The gussets are done by increasing either side of the fake “seams”, the purl stitches (one each side of the body) to mark the demarcation between the two halves, front and back. The increase for each gusset is at a rate of two stitches every four rows (i.e., you increase a stitch at either end of each gusset every fourth row). The close-up photo shows this better – and, as I have to remind myself, the first few rows of a gusset always look awful: the stitches look uneven, the gussets appear lopsided, and some of the increases create “holes”. But by the time they’re finished they always seem to look just fine, so the thing to do is not worry about it and press on.
I usually increase the gussets to about 23 or so stitches, more if it’s for a big person. It also depends how my nerve holds as I look at how long it’s getting overall…
This week, Gordon read what is perhaps the most insane novel ever written. It’s called The List of Seven by Mark Frost, co-creator of Twin Peaks (perhaps my favourite ever TV show), and features a young Arthur Conan Doyle mixed up in a spiritualist-cum-Satanist conspiracy to put Satan on the throne of England. It features a Sherlock Holmes analogue (who is so much better than the rest of the book!), numerous Holmes- and Dracula-pastiches, a zombie army, giant, carnivorous, genetically modified slugs, and even Bram Stoker, whom of course they meet in Whitby (favourite quote: “my name is Abraham Stoker…my friends call me Bram”). Utterly barking, and really quite endearing.
 So, well, week four, eh? Rather like a batsman who’s been out of form and plays some edgy aggressive shots to get himself off the mark, maybe a few streaky fours down through third man, then gradually settles down and paces himself to build a patient innings, I’m slowly settling into the rhythm of knitting again after the hectic rush through the welt. (That’s enough cricketing analogies for now.) So, we have steady but unspectacular progress to report.
I note that the calluses are coming back, too, most prominently on the tip of the left index finger where in the bad old days I’d frequently end up puncturing the skin and have to knit wearing a sticking plaster. This is caused by bad technique, I find, as I use the fingertip to poke the needle back out of the stitch after it’s been inserted and had the wool looped over it, like a bee being nudged off a flower after pollination. (Tried a thimble once but it was like taking a shower with a waste-paper basket on your head.)
 At the moment it’s just a small mark ringed by concentric circles and is rough to the touch, but it’s definitely tender. (Don’t recall Sherlock Holmes ever identifying a knitter by their calluses, either, which makes me wonder if the great detective was all he was cracked up to be, quite frankly.)
This week, Gordon finished Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, a large novel about, among other things, codes and code-breaking, information and banking, and how to divide a deceased relative’s possessions equitably among the family. He watched England beat South Africa at cricket – is there any other sport that insists on playing every game of a series, even after one side has already won the series? – and learned that his job is officially “at risk”, not a huge surprise since we’re closing down next March. And he visited Totnes, which is where old people go when they no longer feel self-conscious.
 Well, here we are at the end of Week 3 which is now officially Kill An Evil Scum-Sucking Spawn-of-the-Devil Moth Week, after I discovered the little blighters had been chomping freely on the current ball of yarn (see photo).
It’s a crime that might have baffled even Sherlock Holmes on one of his good, coke-free days: the ball was in a sealed ziplock plastic bag, and my Bumper Boys’ CSI Moth Detection Kit revealed no trace of Lepidoptera inside. As it couldn’t have happened after it was removed from the bag (it was in plain sight of witnesses the whole time, all known moths had alibis, etc.) I can only suppose the outrage occurred before it went into the bag, i.e. in the shop in the USA whence it was brought. Anyway, imagine a rather comical look of slack-jawed confusion on my features as I tried to work out how I could possibly have no less than 4 ends of yarn in one ball.
 As for the pullover itself, rate of progress is slowing down as I hit my stride, and the novelty wears off. Each row takes about 35 minutes all in, slightly more if it’s a cable row, so I can’t get 2 done in an hour. (Why should that matter? I don’t know but, as Catullus said, fieri sentio et excrucior.) And, just to cap it all, on looking back I find I made a mistake on one of the moss stitch panels about three inches back. It’s right on the edge, and only shows if you’re looking for it, but it’s really annoying to know it’s there.
 On the other hand, I read somewhere that it was a tradition among some knitters to make at least one mistake per gansey, because only God is perfect – and since I wouldn’t want to go round one-upping God I allow myself one mistake too. The only trouble is, making it so early doesn’t leave any margin for error later on, and with a dozen balls still to go the tension mounts (that’s tension as in stress, not…).
As expected, things have settled down a bit after the heady rush of last week. I’m pacing myself, which is easy to do when 3-4 rows, representing a couple of hours’ effort, only adds a quarter of an inch to the total. (England playing so badly at cricket helps, too, as it means I can’t bear to watch most of the time… which makes it easier to concentrate on the knitting…)
After the heady excitement of finishing the welt in a rush, it was time for Decision Point Number 1: how big to make the body? At that stage I still hadn’t settled on a pattern, so I played safe and increased to 432 stitches for the body in the round, or 216 for each half (213 if you discount the 2 purl stitches marking the fake “seams” and a knit stitch on each side of the seam as a border). I have no idea what my stitch gauge is after the cataract operations, so this is mostly guesswork, but it feels like a good number. Time will tell. I can always diet.
At the moment the plan to use a different brand/dye-lot for the welt looks risky, as the new yarn for the body is a brilliant white in comparison: the effect is not dissimilar to a laundry detergent commercial (with the welt illustrating “before”). My current plan involves rolling in a lot of mud when I put the finished gansey on so it won’t be noticeable.
Now it was time for Decision Point Number 2: what should the pattern be? As expected, I’ve opted for Flamborough, based on the photograph on Page 58 of Rae Compton’s book, featuring a chap with a jaunty cap and rather dashing, if unfashionable, sideburns. The moss-stitch-and-cable panels come to 30 stitches in total:
KK-PKPKPK-KK-PP-Cable2-PP-KK-PKPKPK-KK
KK-KPKPKP-KK-PP-Cable1-PP-KK-KPKPKP-KK etc.
so four of those = 120 stitches. 213 – 120 = 93.
 At first I thought of 3 panels of 31 stitches each to sit between the moss-and-cable ones (3 x 31 = 93). The question was, what should they be? Flamborough features diamonds and hearts, so the obvious answer was a diamond, but the thought of a 31-stitch diamond seemed a bit overpowering. Then inspiration struck, and instead of 3 panels of 31 stitches I settled on 5 panels of 19: with a purl border at each side of them, and a knit-stitch at the edge, that makes a more manageable diamond of 15 (P-K-diamond-K-P). The only downside meant increasing by another 2 stitches when I started the pattern (19 x 5 = 95), but I reckoned this wouldn’t be noticeable in all the smoke and confusion. (The moral of the story, children: plan it all out from the beginning!)
Of course I managed to screw up even that simple task: in the first pattern row I forgot about including the 2 border stitches either side of the “seam”, so I had to add an extra increase on the second row (don’t ask). I think T.S. Eliot had the way I knit ganseys in mind when he wrote, “Between the conception and the creation…Falls the Shadow” , but never mind: what’s done is done. And if we keep it between ourselves, I doubt if anyone will even notice… What? Oh.
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The exciting news this week is that, as a reward for much patient toil and not having a social life, I’ve reached the gussets, the underarm triangles that make the finished gansey that much more flexible when doing aerobics or any other outdoor winter workouts.
The gussets are done by increasing either side of the fake “seams”, the purl stitches (one each side of the body) to mark the demarcation between the two halves, front and back. The increase for each gusset is at a rate of two stitches every four rows (i.e., you increase a stitch at either end of each gusset every fourth row). The close-up photo shows this better – and, as I have to remind myself, the first few rows of a gusset always look awful: the stitches look uneven, the gussets appear lopsided, and some of the increases create “holes”. But by the time they’re finished they always seem to look just fine, so the thing to do is not worry about it and press on.
Well, here we are at the end of Week 3 which is now officially Kill An Evil Scum-Sucking Spawn-of-the-Devil Moth Week, after I discovered the little blighters had been chomping freely on the current ball of yarn (see photo).
As for the pullover itself, rate of progress is slowing down as I hit my stride, and the novelty wears off. Each row takes about 35 minutes all in, slightly more if it’s a cable row, so I can’t get 2 done in an hour. (Why should that matter? I don’t know but, as Catullus said, fieri sentio et excrucior.) And, just to cap it all, on looking back I find I made a mistake on one of the moss stitch panels about three inches back. It’s right on the edge, and only shows if you’re looking for it, but it’s really annoying to know it’s there.
On the other hand, I read somewhere that it was a tradition among some knitters to make at least one mistake per gansey, because only God is perfect – and since I wouldn’t want to go round one-upping God I allow myself one mistake too. The only trouble is, making it so early doesn’t leave any margin for error later on, and with a dozen balls still to go the tension mounts (that’s tension as in stress, not…).
At first I thought of 3 panels of 31 stitches each to sit between the moss-and-cable ones (3 x 31 = 93). The question was, what should they be? Flamborough features diamonds and hearts, so the obvious answer was a diamond, but the thought of a 31-stitch diamond seemed a bit overpowering. Then inspiration struck, and instead of 3 panels of 31 stitches I settled on 5 panels of 19: with a purl border at each side of them, and a knit-stitch at the edge, that makes a more manageable diamond of 15 (P-K-diamond-K-P). The only downside meant increasing by another 2 stitches when I started the pattern (19 x 5 = 95), but I reckoned this wouldn’t be noticeable in all the smoke and confusion. (The moral of the story, children: plan it all out from the beginning!)