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Greetings all!
I thought I’d have a go at my gansey tutorial Part 2 this week, since I’ve finished the neck – 1.5 inches of ribbing – and reached my least favourite part of the process, viz., picking up the stitches along the armholes for the sleeves.
I appreciate that this will be very old news to some of you, who I imagine can do this blindfold, and probably do at knitting workshops, like the Marines disassembling and reassembling their rifles. But, as I say, I’m hoping to build this up into a separate section for the website so that someone who has never done any of this before will hopefully get some tips on how to go about it. So, feedback welcome (and, of course, if you have any tips of your own, please feel free to share)!
First of all, I measured the actual size of the armholes, and they came to 8.5 inches from the end of the gusset to the top of the shoulder. Now, I know my stitch gauge is about 9.25 stitches to the inch, so a simple calculation (8.5 x 9.25) tells me that I have just over 78 stitches to pick up for each side. Add one for a central stitch and an odd number, and that gives me 157 stitches all told. So now I know what i have to do; I just have to do it.
When back in the mists of time I stopped knitting in the round and divided for the armholes, I left the gusset stitches on a holder (1). I find that old gansey 5-ply yarn makes a pretty good stitch holder, so I just knit a piece of old yarn through the gusset stitches and forget about them for a few months. (One advantage of using old yarn is that it’s very flexible, and hasn’t got any pointy bits to jab me in unfortunate places when I sneeze.)
I always start the armholes by picking up a few stitches of the gusset first. This has a couple of real advantages. You see, if I start picking up the armhole stitches straight away, I tend to end up with a larger, looser first stitch (I assume this is a failing in my technique, but every time I start to pick up stitches without a run-in like this I can’t keep the tension as taut as I’d like and the result after a couple of rows is a very noticeable hole. This way I can start knitting with a new ball of yarn for several stitches of plain knitting, and for some reason the tension is much easier to maintain.) The other advantage is that I’m starting the gusset in the middle – which means that every time I decrease from hereon in, the decrease is happening on the same row on both sides of the gusset; otherwise the left side decrease would be out of sync with the right side by a row.
Anyway, you now have to get the stitches off the holding yarn and onto a double-pointed needle. Thread a needle (hereinafter “Needle 1”) through half a dozen or so stitches on the left side of the gusset (2), slide the yarn out from those stitches (3) and re-tie the yarn to prevent any stitches dropping off when you’re not looking (4).
Drop a good length of the end of the new ball of yarn you’re going to knit with into the armhole (5). (I tend to go for long ends of 4-6 inches to keep them out of the way, but that’s a bit excessive, I know – so long as you’ve got enough to darn them in at the end, that’s all you really need.) When you’re happy with the length of your yarn end, hold it in position by anchoring it between thumb and finger (6) to ensure a good tension on your first stitch – otherwise it will be too loose and you’ll end up with the dreaded hole, as mentioned above. Insert another double-pointed needle (hereinafter “Needle 2”) through the first stitch (7), and knit a plain stitch in the usual way (8-10).
Knit the rest of the stitches on Needle 1, until you have 2 gusset stitches left plus the purl seam stitch (11). Make a decrease by knitting the last 2 gusset stitches together (12-15). This helps to make a sharp diamond shape for the gusset, and also helps with your counting as you progress down the sleeve: because the first row is going to be your pick-up row, it won’t be part of the pattern – the pattern will start on the next row, which will be the first “real” row; so, by making a decrease on this row, you can keep the gusset and the pattern in sync as you progress down the sleeve. (Obviously you also have to remember to decrease when you reach the other side of the gusset too.)
And after all that, you’re ready to start actually picking up stitches – but at least you don’t have to worry about flabby yarn tension at the same time!
Insert Needle 1 through the first of the edge stitches, making sure you get all of it (16). It should look like an ear of wheat on the needle. (Usually the edge stitches are curled inwards a bit and are almost at right angles anyway, so they’re not that hard to see.) To pick up the stitch, just knit a plain stitch in the usual way (17-20) by inserting Needle 2 through the opening you’ve created, looping the yarn over it, pulling it back through and slipping the stitch from Needle 1 to Needle 2.
Repeat up the armhole for as many stitches as your stitch gauge demands (21). This is why it’s important to add an extra stitch on the edge of your armhole, because the row on the very end of each side is sacrificed as you pick up your new stitches – so always make your yoke 2 stitches wider than your pattern demands. You will notice the row next to them becomes very clearly delineated as you progress up the armhole (22 and 23), which is another way of telling you that you’re doing it right.
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One point to remember is that your (horizontal) stitch gauge will be a smaller number than your (vertical) row gauge. In my case, I knit about 9.25 stitches to the inch, but get about 12 rows to the inch. So you have to be careful not to fall into the trap of picking up every edge stitch, or you’ll have about a quarter more stitches than you need, all too close together. I try to use landmarks on the yoke pattern to help me get the spacing about right – in this case, the ladder on each side of the yoke pattern makes a helpful marker. There are 16 steps on each ladder, so if I pick up some 9 stitches for every 2 steps I should be about right (78 divided by 16 equals 4.5).
The only other thing to look out for is that it’s very easy to pick up just half a stitch – easier than picking up a whole stitch, in fact. In this case, instead of the “ear of wheat” effect referred to above, you just get a single loop on your needle (24), and if the stitch is completed it stands out from the rest of the row (25). This is a Bad Thing and is to be avoided unless you wish your name to be a hissing and a byword in knitting circles.
Well, there we are. No sewing involved at any stage.
Sorry if that was (a) too obvious for words, or (b) too tiresome and complicated (delete as applicable). This next week is a momentous one as I reach my fiftieth year on this earth, and have a rescheduled interview with the Western Isles Council (they’re coming to Edinburgh this time!). So it could be a remarkably good week, or…
 So, Thursday morning, 4.45 a.m. The radio alarm’s gone off, I’ve woken up to the gentle strains of classical music on Radio 3, said “Bleugh” to no one in particular, rolled over and gone back to sleep, and then 3 minutes later had the shock of a second alarm exploding in my ear (you’ll notice I’ve done this before), over and over like a robot trying to work out why a clown horn is funny.
This was the day of the big interview in Stornoway on the Outer Hebrides. All week I’d been carefully mugging up on the geography of the archipelago, trying to work out how to pronounce the Gaelic names, researching the demographics and the islands’ history from the Vikings up to the clearances and famines of the C19 and on to the present day, and thinking up ways I could make my resignation from the SCA sound like a grown-up and mature course of action (tough call).
 An hour later I was dressed in my best interview suit (i.e., only three people stopped me to ask if I was selling The Big Issue) and strolling up Waverley Bridge to catch the shuttle bus to the airport. I was a little surprised to see a small crowd gathered at the stop before an empty bus, and a man in a fluorescent jacket talking to everyone. All of Scotland’s airports, he told us, were closed – something to do with volcanic ash from Iceland, apparently. No planes were taking off or landing. The buses were running every 10 minutes as usual – we were free to take one if we wished – but we weren’t going to fly anywhere that morning.
Huh. So that was that. I returned to the flat by dawn’s early light and through the rest of the day watched my amusing little story become headline news, as the cloud drifted south and gradually shut down English, Welsh, and then Continental airports too, so that 5 days later Europe is still pretty much a no-fly zone. At the time of writing no one knows how long this will last, or what the consequences will be.
 Not bad, as anticlimaxes go. Mind you, sometimes I imagine how I would have felt if I had made it to the interview, not got the job, and then been stuck in Stornoway for 4 days (Stornoway’s the main town on the archipelago, population 6,000 or so…). Anyway, once the travel situation (or at least the sky) is clearer, the interviews will be rescheduled.
Meanwhile, you’ll see from the photos that I’ve finished the shoulders (using the same diamond trellis pattern from the yoke) and joined the shoulders at the back. I plan to develop a “how to knit a gansey” section for beginners as part of the website, so we’ve made a start by taking some pictures of the technique for joining the shoulders. It’ll be old news to most of you experienced knitters out there – in fact most of you will probably tell me I’m doing it wrong! But it may even extend one day to YouTube style video demonstrations, who knows?
| In short and for now, place each shoulder on a straight double-pointed needle, line them up side by side, |
then, with a third needle, |
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| knit through the first pair of stitches |
and slip them off their needles; |
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| you will now have a new stitch on the third needle. |
Repeat for the second pair of stitches, so you now have 2 new stitches on your third needle. |
Slip the first stitch you made right over the second. You now have one stitch on your needle (the newest one). |
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| Repeat the process until all your shoulder stitches have been knit through and cast off. When all your shoulder stitches have been cast off and you only have one stitch left, on your third needle, thread the tail of your yarn through the loop of the stitch and pull it tight. Like a serpent eating its own tail, you’ve made a tight knot that can’t unravel – and you’re done. And the best bit? No sewing involved at any stage! |
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 Hurrah! With a bound he was free…
I’ve finally worked my last shift for the Scottish Council on Archives, and shaken the dust from my sandals, as we are advised to do when faced with those that will not receive us or hear our words. Technically I’m still employed by them for another couple of weeks (I’m using up my holiday right now) but in practice that’s it, and I can get on with my life (or what I like to think of as my half-life, like that of decaying nuclear particles). People keep asking me why I resigned, but I’m trying to be professional and keep that to myself, as far as possible.
 In theory, I now have more time for knitting. Not that I’ve really felt like it yet (not a big surprise, perhaps under the circumstances). Though I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I don’t have to get up and go to work! I’m still worried about the future, of course – I’ve been joking to people that if in a few months time they see a huddled figure on Princes Street with a cardboard sign which reads, “Will catalogue Latin documents for cash”, well, be generous, as that’ll be me!
You’ll see from the photos that I have resolved the Great Centre Panel debate of last week by deciding to knit a one-third diamond on the centre panel before cutting it off for the collar, which I think will look perfectly fine. I’ve reached the shoulder strap on the first shoulder (note the shaped neckline – this represents a decrease of 12 stitches over 24 rows, or one stitch every 2 rows, leaving the shoulder at 75 stitches; the last 6 rows are then knit straight). This should make for a nice loose neckline, avoiding the “Boston strangler” effect I experience with the traditional gansey.
 I’ve planned out the shoulder strap now, which you will hopefully see next week. I wanted to stick to the patterns I’ve already used on the gansey to make it feel more unified, so I’ve adopted the trellis that runs across the middle and widened it out, so it’s 25 rows deep (i.e., 2 inches). As explained previously, I’ll knit it all as an extension to the front shoulder, and then join each strap to the back shoulder.
In the meantime, I’ve been listening to an awful lot of Gustav Mahler’s music recently, so I decided to read up on his life while I was at it. And I came across this quote from his wife, Alma. It’s about why he had to resign in the end from the Philharmonic Society in New York: “You cannot imagine what he suffered … to his amazement, he had ten women ordering him around like a puppet…”
 I’ve discovered there’s an unexpected bonus to growing older and developing all sorts of ailments. It gives you something to talk to friends and relatives about.
We’ve just returned from a very pleasant Easter visiting my parents at the ancestral home in Northamptonshire, a lengthy drive of some 335 miles (but still cheaper than the train which would have clocked in at a spectacular £380 for the pair of us second class). I love my family, and we all get on fine, but we have about as much in common as Mahatma Gandhi and Attila the Hun (yes, draw your own conclusions – naturally I don’t see myself as Gandhi – though “Attila the Archivist” doesn’t have quite the right tone, somehow).
On politics, religion, music, books, sport, metaphysics, and just about all aspects of life, we are poles apart. I read Dostoyevski and PG Wodehouse, my brother reads horror novels and car magazines. I enjoy watching cricket, my father loathes all sports. I watch documentaries, The Simpsons and Mythbusters, and, well, they don’t. My brother is passionately fond of cars, and owns about half a dozen – like the Rollright Stones just up the road, he has so many it’s impossible to count them – whereas I find cars about as interesting as shoelaces (and no, I don’t want to hear from any shoelace fanatics anxious to change my mind, thank you all the same!).
 So it was a whole new experience to find myself in animated conversation with my father and brother about blood pressure (and the various pills you can take and their side effects – a very profitable seam, this one), cataracts, allergic reactions, blocked sinuses and migraines. Of course, my parents are in their 80s now, so they have an unfair advantage over my brother and me, being able to trump our feeble ailments with stirring tales of heart, hip and knee operations – but age must have its privileges, I suppose.
And now we’re back in Edinburgh, with just a Thorntons Easter egg between us and starvation, and a couple of nasty colds between us (see? I told you illnesses were great topics of conversation).
I’ve decided to start the neck of the front of the gansey around one third/halfway up the topmost panel. This always creates a dilemma – do you leave it blank (but that just draws attention to itself), or do you truncate the pattern (but that looks incomplete) – or do you introduce a different pattern that fits the space available (but that offends the artist in me – and who’d have thought there was one?). In fact, given that it’s another diamond, I plan to carry on with it until it gets cut off for the neck – a half diamond shouldn’t look too out of place. Well, we’ll find out soon enough.
So, on the whole, not much progress this week. But what did you expect – with all these pills I have to take? I tell you, it’s a wonder I can still type…
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