Support Gansey Nation -


Buy Gordon a cuppa!


Many, many thanks to those of you who have already contributed!

Thurso: 26 July

ThTh150726-1As a result of having a couple of my ganseys on display in the St Fergus Gallery next door as part of their display of old photographs, I’ve been visited at work by a number of people curious to know more. So I’ve been holding impromptu gansey workshops in my office, which is not as easy as it sounds without yarn or needles—at best it looked as if I was doing the knitting equivalent of playing air guitar, and at worst like someone who’d overdosed on amphetamines indulging in a spot of tai chi.

ThTh150724-3In passing, one lady told me her mother remembered the bombing of Wick in World War Two by the Germans. She’d been sent out to buy some mince (US = ground beef), and decided to take shelter in the Cinema; but the bombs continued to drop, and the whole building shook. When it was finally over she looked down and found that she’d unconsciously been clenching her fists and the mince was all over the floor, squeezed out from between her fingers.

The good news on the gansey front is that I’ve almost finished the second sleeve: just a few inches and then there’s only the cuff, the darning-in of ends and then the blocking to go. (And I could do with it, too—temperatures continue to hover around the 10-14ºC mark and the wind’s been so strong the trees already seem to be shedding their leaves.)

ThTh150722-1

John o’Groats on a sunny day.

As ever, I’m already thinking about my next project. This will be for my friend Jan; it will be in Frangipani seaspray, and will be based on a traditional Scottish Fleet pattern (number XXVIII in Gladys Thompson’s book, illustration number 134, if you’re curious and/or impatient).

ThTh150723-2

Betty Martin?

Finally this week, we’re starting to think ahead to our autumn holiday this October in the States, and if the planets align correctly we might be able to visit the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival at Rhinebeck. Granted that it’s too late to organise an official Gansey Nation Clan Gathering of our own, it’d nevertheless be great to meet up with any members of the Clan that might be heading there. So, if you’d like us to look into organising something over that weekend, drop us an email or post a comment below.

And who knows? Maybe we should try and do this properly one year, have a Gansey Weekend Stateside, with workshops and talks and whatnot (topics might include: “The ethics of cabling”, “The impact of zigzags on the decline of traditional fishing”, and of course, “That Betty Martin, she didn’t half put herself about, know what I mean?”)

27 July 2015 | 14 comments

Thurso: 19 July

ThTh150720-1 As Shakespeare so memorably observed in one of his Sonnets, ‘I’d walk a million miles for one of your smiles’; but how far would I drive to avoid the Caithness County Show? The answer, it turned out on Saturday, is about 107 miles.

ThTh150718-2Each year the show alternates between Thurso and Wick, and this year was Wick’s turn. The showground is in the fields across the road from us, and we watched in fascination as within the space of a couple of days a village of marquees appeared, animal pens, a funfair and enough vintage tractors to plough Ohio. It was like the Field of the Cloth of Gold, only instead of jousting matches between Henry VII and François I we had stunt bikes and burger vans.

ThTh150718-1

They are out there

Now, agricultural shows are not altogether my thing, fond as I am in general of sheep and mud (and other stuff that looks at first sight like mud but really isn’t); so we tactfully made our excuses and headed south for Chanonry Point on the beautiful Black Isle. There we braved the cold wind and flurries of rain to watch a pair of dolphins or small whales (‘whalettes’ I believe is the scientific term) fooling about in the Moray Firth, their arched backs as they slipped beneath the surface looking like undulating coils of the Loch Ness Monster.

We took a scenic detour on the way back around the Dornoch Firth, so that by the time we returned home the show was just about over and only the funfair remained, as if life wasn’t sufficiently full of sadness already.

ThTh150720-2Meanwhile I’ve been working hard on the gansey, helped by the fact that so much of the sleeve is plain knitting and thus relatively quick to knit, and requiring less concentration than a full-length pattern. So I have finished the first sleeve, picked up stitches around the armhole of the second, and am now on the home straight. I should get it finished within the next fortnight, i.e., by the end of the month, if I’m lucky. It’s been a joy to knit.

As I mentioned last week, the St Fergus Gallery next door is using a couple of my ganseys as part of its exhibition of old photographs from the Wick Museum’s Johnston Collection. There’s a much-enlarged photo in the display of a fisherman (Fergus Ferguson) with a very fancy gansey; the image is so clear I think I can chart out the pattern, and if so  I have an idea to try to recreate it for the museum, maybe next summer. Watch this space.

Against my better judgment I posed for a publicity picture next to my ganseys. Here it is, for what it’s worth; though I do rather look as though I’ve just been interrupted while eating the thighbone of a rather plump child, which I’ve hastily hidden just out of camera shot. The things one does for art…

20 July 2015 | 20 comments

Thurso: 12 July

ThTh150713-1Summer has come to Caithness; at least I think it has. Certainly the tourists have started to arrive—they’re the ones you see huddled under awnings, peering out through curtains of rainwater, watching their hats, snatched off their heads by a playful tornado, vanishing somewhere in the direction of Siberia, and wishing they’d brought a jumper, or a coat, or a return ticket.

It’s all a bit disappointing. While the rest of the country has been basting like a turkey in the heat, with people shedding clothes like autumn leaves, we’ve still got the central heating on; whenever the weather map of the country has sprouted yellow suns like a field of daffodils, Wick’s been permanently hidden under a dark cloud, like Mordor. (This, of course, adds weight to my theory that the reason orcs are bandy-legged is not genetic but due to rickets, caused by not getting enough Vitamin D from sunlight.)

ThTh150706-1

At the Jardin du Canal du Midi

Oh, well. Margaret’s been off enjoying la bonne vie in the south of France (see her Blipfoto link for pictures to make you jealous), while I, a Cinderella who never got invited to the ball—not that I fancy a glass slipper, mind you: think of the damage you’d do if you stubbed your toe and it broke, it’d be like strapping a steak knife to your foot and going skating—have been knitting; and rather a lot, at that.

I’ve finished the back; finished the front; knit the shoulders together; completed the collar; and started the first sleeve, even managing to get the upper arm pattern band done. Altogether, this has been one of the easiest ganseys I’ve ever knit, which may be the reason it’s gone so quickly. Everything’s just clicked (something of a relief after having to abandon the last one halfway).

I decided to make the sleeve chevron the same size as its counterpart on the body—it is quite large, and I wondered if it might be a bit overpowering on a sleeve, but it seems to fit in so far.

ThTh150704-1

Quaint? Yup! And there’s wifi at the cafe!

In parish notices, there are some more baby pictures from Den, whose Filey gansey is entering the home straight in fine racing form, and Judit, who’s started a new project, which also happens to be one of the many Filey patterns that’ve come down to us.

I was talking to someone this week, and he mentioned an acquaintance, an old fisherman, who had once had several ganseys his mother had knitted for him—but who had thrown them out years ago, for what was the use of keeping the old things? So when I think of the numerous patterns that we have for Filey (and Flamborough and Polperro, and all the rest) I thank heavens for Rae, and Gladys, and Michael, and Mary et al.

Finally, in a few days the St Fergus Gallery next door to us is holding its annual exhibition of old photographs from the wonderful Johnston Collection. This year one of the themes will be fishermen in their jumpers, and I’m loaning them two or three of mine so they can show visitors what ganseys looked like in the flesh, as it were. Fame at last! (Though you never know—unless the weather improves soon I might be nipping next door and “liberating” one, just to stay warm…)

13 July 2015 | 8 comments